Prospects for a brighter future continue to provide comfort to an otherwise impoverished people

Dear Editor,

As the year 2019 comes to an end, there are a number of events that will be etched in the collective memories of Guyanese, and for that matter, peoples all across the globe.

Perhaps the most significant of all was the recent impeachment of US President Donald Trump, who has gone down as the third President of the United States to have been impeached.
Then there is the Brexit saga and the fall and rise of Conservative politics, which culminated in the overwhelming victory of Boris Johnson in recent parliamentary elections.

The year also saw political instability in several parts of the world, more particularly the Middle East and Latin America. Venezuela continues to be a hotbed of tension as the conflict between the Maduro government and the political opposition continues to wreak havoc on the lives of an untold number of Venezuelans, a significant number of whom fled to neighbouring countries to eke out an existence.

At the local level, the refusal of the Government to abide by the ruling of the Courts following a successful no-confidence motion has taken centre stage. This development, coupled with the delaying tactics employed by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to hold elections within the constitutionally due timeframe, has created a fair measure of anxiety regarding the Commission’s impartiality and its capacity to conduct free and fair elections due on March 2, 2020.

The announcement by Exxon Mobil that the lifting of First Oil has been brought forward from the first quarter of 2020 to December this year has been positively received by Guyanese, even though concerns were raised by some stakeholders regarding transparency and the method used by the administration on the sale of the initial crude.

The year 2019 had its full share of gloom and doom, but the prospects for a better and brighter future continue to provide some solace and comfort to an otherwise impoverished people.

Hydar Ally