More Cabinet talks this week on election date -Granger

Last Updated on Sunday, 22 September 2019, 18:54 by Writer

President David Granger says he will this week hold another round of consultations with his Cabinet and hopes that the outcome of those deliberations will lead to his announcement of a date for general elections.

“The full Cabinet will meet again on Tuesday…,” he said. He described the issue of naming an election date as “urgent”.

He said Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting would be a follow-up to one he held last week Thursday and which was attended by, among others, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan, Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson and Foreign Affairs Minister Karen Cummings.

Through a presidential aide, he further explained to Demerara Waves Online News/News-Talk Radio 103.1 FM that at this meeting he hopes to meet with others who were absent due to travel duties. “After the consultations, he is going to be able to announce a date. He says he is looking forward to an early announcement but he has to rely on the advice of his ministers at this point,” the aide said.

There have been incessant calls and criticisms by the opposition People’s Progressive Party, private sector, the international community – American, British and European Union – to call an early election date.

The President last week Thursday was advised by Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission, Retired Justice Claudette Singh that the elections management agency would be ready after late February, 2020 to conduct the general and regional elections.

Earlier than previously expected general elections have been on the cards ever since the National Assembly last year December approved an opposition-sponsored no-confidence motion. After a long-running legal battle in local courts and the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), the vote was validated, but GECOM had claimed that it had not been ready to conduct the elections.