Seriously ill Charrandass Persaud flown to Canada

Last Updated on Sunday, 24 December 2023, 22:22 by Writer

Charrandass Persaud – the then governing APNU+AFC coalition parliamentarian who set in motion the virtual collapse of the David Granger-led administration by voting for a People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC)-sponsored no-confidence motion- has fallen seriously ill and was Wednesday evacuated to Canada, according to medical sources.

One of the sources said Mr Persaud was suffering from internal bleeding and subsequently developed complications associated with a diagnostic scan. That source said when he first sought treatment at a hospital, he was diagnosed with internal bleeding and so a decision was taken to conduct a scan.

Another source said Mr Persaud, a former Guyana High Commissioner to India, underwent surgery locally and after his condition was stabilised he was medically evacuated to Canada. He is also a Canadian citizen.

Mr Persaud, a Caribbean-trained lawyer, first rose to prominence in December 2018 when he voted for a no-confidence motion that had been tabled by the PPPC’s General Secretary, Bharrat Jagdeo in the National Assembly.

After the PPPC was declared the winner of the March 2020 general elections in August of that year, Mr Persaud had been appointed Guyana’s High Commissioner to India in 2021. But in 2022 he was recalled after a video had surfaced of him spouting expletives at a female Indian animal rights activist who had gone to his yard to ask about the whereabouts of a dog.

In what the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) had subsequently ruled should have been elections three months after the no-confidence motion, that vote had led to a string of court cases including one that had challenged whether 33 parliamentary votes were the majority of the 65 seats.

After a number of other court cases, including one by the PPPC that had questioned the constitutionality of the appointment of now late Retired Justice James Patterson, the general and regional elections were held in March 2020.