The Working People’s Alliance (WPA) Saturday night called for a Caribbean Community (CARICOM)-supervised national recount of votes if it is constitutional, but said the winner should set the groundwork for power-sharing within a set timeframe. “We reiterate our demand that following the examination of the ballot boxes which reveal the credibility of the elections, whichever party wins the most votes ...
Read More »Race
OPINION: Accept results of verifiable count to close gap between horror and hope
By Nigel Westmaas Guyana’s national election was held on Monday, March 2. We are now more than a week away from that date and there is still no declaration of a ‘winner’. The elections were held under conditions of decades and decades’ long ethnic and racial division and suspicion of the other. The confusion that descended on the country in ...
Read More »OPINION: Politicians must tackle racial divide head-on. But is it too late?
by GHK Lall Reference is made to the article within the Elections 2020 section of Stabroek News on February 3 titled, “Politicians need to tackle Guyana’s racial divide head-on.” It is certainly encouraging that there is this recognition, as belated as it is. I say this, because the racial divide, which I have been emphasizing from the loneliness of the ...
Read More »PPP’s Irfan Ali appeals to PNCR-led coalition supporters for a hearing
Presidential candidate for the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC), Irfaan Ali on Friday appealed to non-traditional supporters to give him and his party a hearing and eventually cast their ballots for the party that last ruled Guyana for 23 unbroken years. In clear reference to Afro-Guyanese – that segment of the country’s population that has largely supported the People’s National ...
Read More »ERC probes race remarks against WPA executive member
The Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) has begun investigating a report of alleged racially insensitive remarks by Working People’s Alliance (WPA) executive member, Desmond Trotman against the Chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PSC), Gerry Gouveia. ERC Chief Investigator, former Deputy Police Commissioner Alvin Smith told Demerara Waves/News-Talk Radio Guyana that he has asked Trotman for a meeting. Gouveia has said ...
Read More »OPINION: A case for sharing with a vision of progressing
By GHK Lall There has been a sporadic drumbeat relative to some mechanism for shared governance as the way forward. I offer a high-level view, as to why this is the only measure that facilitates some movement out of the political and racial gutter. I now identify some of the pluses and disadvantages of such a shared apparatus, whatever shape ...
Read More »OPINION: Perfectionism, meritocracy, and Protestant work ethic under attack
By GHK Lall “NYC Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza has made ‘whiteness’ toxic, Department of Education insiders claim” (NY Post May 18). Unfortunately, switch the color scheme to ‘brownness’ or ‘blackness’ and that claim would quickly find volume and mileage right here in political and bureaucratic Guyana. All one has to do is weigh the years. First, some foreign context. The ...
Read More »Afro-Guyanese pushing for return to village councils because NDCs have taken control
Afro-Guyanese on Sunday signaled they would be accelerating lobbying for a return to village councils because the existing local governance system has removed their ownership and direct responsibility for their villages, but the Guyana Reparations Committee said a special law is needed for land rights and local governance. Chairman of the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDPADA-G), ...
Read More »Afro-Guyanese must unite, learn about self-identity, lobby for oil money, land reform – renowned academic
Internationally renowned Guyanese historian, Professor Kimani Nehusi on Sunday called for African-Guyanese organisations to unite, and he singled out the need for that racial group to have a sense of identity if they are to lobby the State to redistribute lands and spend some of the oil revenues on addressing the horrendous impacts of slavery. Speaking at an interactive session ...
Read More »Upcoming general elections won’t be “cake-walk” – Harmon tells PNCR General Council
General Secretary of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Joseph Harmon says the upcoming general elections would not be easy, even as his party leader expressed confidence in regaining power. “Mr. Harmon warned that these elections were not going to be a “cake-walk” and urged members to continue mobilizing and organising at the group, district and regional level to ensure ...
Read More »