Best hope for Guyana lies in ensuring excesses of any Gov’t are reined in by independent Parliament

Dear Editor,

I don’t know Mr. A.A. Fenty. By all accounts of people that I trust, he is a sincere and patriotic Guyanese, and a longstanding and committed supporter of the APNU. But his letter in SN (23rd September, 2019) suggests that this last feature – loyalty to the APNU – was lost as a result of the unlawful manipulation of our Constitution by the Granger-led Government. Mr. Fenty expresses his disgust at President Granger’s ‘bullyism’ and informs that the APNU has as a result lost his vote.

Mr. Fenty is not alone in his disillusionment with and rejection of the Coalition government. I also voted for change in 2015, and lent my support to the pre-election campaign of the APNU-AFC coalition. After the excesses of the Coalition Government post 2015, my support changed to criticism, in similar vein to what Mr. Fenty expresses. But I want Mr. Fenty to understand that this disgust with the corruption and incompetence by this Government (which reflects the corruption and incompetence by its predecessor) was the catalyst which compelled the founders of A New and United Guyana to act.

This is simply because the alternative – to do nothing while the two large and equally harmful parties vie for power, personal wealth and aggrandizement of their leaders at the expense of the country – is not acceptable.

The majority of Guyanese remain polarized and will vote blindly for the party of their ethnicity. The more discerning among them will justify their party loyalty by the increasingly hollow refrain: ‘the lesser of two evils’.

But there is an increasing number of honest and sincere women and men of integrity who supported the Coalition, but now recognize the game and the players, and see Granger for what he is, and reject him. There is equally an increasing number of honest and sincere men and women who supported the PPP, but were repelled by the venal corruption of that party, and were affronted when Jagdeo presented Irfaan Ali as that party’s presidential candidate, adding insult to injury.

A New and United Guyana speaks to this group of Guyanese. We wish to point out that, by doing nothing, by not voting or by voting for ‘the lesser of two evils’, you permit the status quo of a democratically elected dictatorship for yet another election cycle. We are well aware of the betrayal of trust by the AFC, and that it will be hard to trust a new Third Force. But this does not change our reality: the best hope for Guyana lies in ensuring that the excesses of any Government which is formed after 2020 are controlled by an independent Parliament. And the only way for Parliament to be independent is for a third party or third parties to hold the balance of power in that House. This is the start of the solution, and it is possible, because there are many sincere, loyal, patriotic Guyanese from both sides of the political divide who have had enough. We can break the cycle. The first step is an independent Parliament.

Yours faithfully,

Timothy Jonas