Mr Granger can now measure his own series of unconstitutional acts

Dear Editor,

I wish to share the following transcript from an interview which Mr. David Granger gave with a friendly reporter sometime in 2014/2015. The context was the prorogation of the National Assembly by then President Donald Ramotar after a Motion of No Confidence had been lodged with the Clerk of the National Assembly in 2014.

Maybe Mr. Granger ought to use this as a backdrop to measure his own series of unconstitutional acts which caused the Caribbean Court of Justice to rule against him not once but twice.

Host: “As the President, are you willing to say that the President is breaking the law?”

President Granger: “He is not fulfilling the requirements of the constitution. In a sense, how can this man decide not to have General and Regional Elections? It is required in the constitution. If he doesn’t hold them he is breaking the constitution. Similarly, if he keeps fabricating excuses he is in breach of the constitution. It is a breach of the constitution and I would say that he can be impeached before the National Assembly.

“Parliament can impeach him for being in breach of the constitution. But unless he tells the public, the nation, the Guyanese people by the 15th of September what date election will be held, I know what I’m going to do. So, I have not received a response. If between now and the 15th he can tell me when the election, I’m not interested in ‘gaff’now, I’m interested in the date and he must state the date. That is as much as I can say and at present, I am mobilizing support internationally and nationally.”

While hypocrisy is not a word I would wish to use to describe Mr. Granger, the least that can be said of him is either that he has undergone a metamorphosis or that he believes that he has some divine or monarchical right to violate the Constitution, the National Assembly and the Courts. Mr Granger now rules without parliamentary oversight of his wanton spending, a National Assembly unable to exercise its sacred function of making laws, disregard for the Courts, contempt for at least half the country’s population and no appreciation of the damage his politically motivated lawless actions is doing to the body politics of the country.

I will soon share an equally hypocritical quote from a speech by Attorney-at-Law Mr. Nigel Hughes around the same time.

Yours faithfully,

Christopher Ram