– Badal and Change Guyana executives differ on party’s status
There is a falling-out between the Leader of Change Guyana (CG), well-known businessman, Robert Badal, and Executives of the party on whether or not Change Guyana has been dissolved.
Having failed to secure enough votes to win a seat in the National Assembly at the March 2020 General and Regional Elections, five Executives within the party announced, on Sunday evening, after a collective decision on the dissolution of the party.
However, shortly after this was reported on by the media, Badal was contacted on the decision to which he revealed has not received his blessings. In fact, he stated that, as far as he is concerned, the party remains in effect.
Badal ran as Change Guyana’s Presidential Candidate in the elections while Chartered Accountant, Nigel Hinds ran as its Prime Ministerial Candidate, before he was forced to drop out of the race in January 2020 due to his dual citizenship and poor health. He was replaced by young Attorney-at-Law, Mishka Puran.
In a press release on Sunday signed by the Hinds — also the party’s Chairman; Puran; Vice Chairman, Ramesh Ramoutar and Executives Everton Morris and Ryan Dey, the former party members noted the joint decision to dissolve the party. The Village Voice notes that Badal was not a signatory to the document.
“Change Guyana political party has achieved outsized accomplishments in pre and post March 2020 General and Regional elections of Guyana. Now in this August month of 2020, the month where we have had a democratic transition, the majority leadership of Change Guyana made the decision that the dissolution of Change Guyana as a political party is in the best interest of our members and supporters,” they stated.
The former members thanked their support base for ensuring that, of the six new parties that contested in the elections, Change Guyana received the second highest votes in the Regional Elections and third highest votes in the General Elections.
In the General Elections the party secured 1,953 votes and 2,607 in the Regional. No new party was able to secure a seat in the National Assembly, on its own, but a joinder of three parties was able to secure one seat. Post E-Day, Change Guyana took a sharp drop out of the spotlight with Hinds and Morris making brief appearances during the National Recount in May.
Change Guyana was launched in October, 2019 with a promise of solutions to Guyana’s economic problems; the abolishing of property and capital gains taxes; the removal of taxes from mobile data plans, water and education; rapid job creation; reduced poverty and more.
The former party members said that the unique contributions made by Change Guyana over its ten months of existence set out to develop economic and social policies which would meet the socio-economic needs of Guyanese. They are proud of their fight for “a democratic transition” based on the national recount data coming out of the elections.
“The former leaders and members of Change Guyana can now work independently or collectively towards building a new political movement or political party or pursue their goals afresh, while always being appreciative of those individuals who supported and continue to seek a change in the political culture of Guyana,” the group of individuals said, adding:
“The focus of Guyanese in leadership positions must be to significantly reduce poverty across Guyana and practice inclusivity and diversity in governance and employment at the private sector and public sector levels; this must be our continuous pursuit.”
Though Badal maintains that Change Guyana has not been dissolved, when the Village Voice made attempts to view the party’s website it was no longer in existence. The message received was that “changeguyana.com expired on 08/12/2020 and is pending renewal or deletion”. However, its social media page remained intact but did not reflect the release as sent out by the Executives. Its last post on August 9, showed Hinds during a meeting with new President of Guyana, Dr. Irfaan Ali and Minister of Public Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, on the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
