Vice President (V.P), Bharrat Jagdeo, has been using his press conferences to lash out at persons and make inaccurate statements, which have intensified during the Local Government Elections. At a recent press conference Jagdeo accused some members of the A Partnership of National Unity (APNU), including Roysdale Forde S.C, M.P; Amanza Walton-Desir M.P; and Ganesh Mahipaul M.P of not campaigning during the just concluded elections. This was not true. The named persons were not only on the ground and fully supported the campaign.
Village Voice News reached out to Forde for a response to the VP’s statement. According to the senior counsel “whilst no one should have any difficulty with the Vice President pandering to his base by spinning numbers and claiming that PPP/C [People’s Progressive Party/Civic] made significant inroads in traditional strongholds of the PNCR [People’s National Congress Reform], he ought to be very careful about trying to speak for another party of which he has no knowledge or proper information.”
Jagdeo’s utterance, Forde said, was a deliberate attempt to single out certain members of APNU for negative treatment but it will not work. According to Forde, rather than directs attention into the APNU, the PPP/C should have had Minister Nigel Dharamlall proceeded on leave and ordered an investigation into the allegation of sexual violation of a child, accede to the clamour an audit for the unaccounted-for cash grants, conduct an independent and impartial inquiry into the allegations made by Su Zhirong that he [Jagdeo] was the kingpin of kickbacks to distribute contracts.
The member of parliament, who shadows the Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, further noted the VP will do well to learn valuable lessons from the recent elections. One such lesson, he said, could be gleaned from US President Abraham Lincoln- “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”
Asked to respond to the VP’s vilification of persons, the shadow minister said the party comrades Jagdeo has targeted remain faithful to the PNCR and continue to demonstrate their commitment to advance the interest of the party and country.
In the meantime, Jagdeo and other leaders of the PPP/C have been doing the media round to push back against statements the government spent billions to ‘buy’ votes but has received negligible rewards on the investment. Forde, asked to respond to this, said “Jagdeo must be particularly worried, in the core of his thoughts, that, notwithstanding the enormous amount of money spent, by his party, to bribe the people, its collective yield was miniscule and extremely disappointing. Money does not necessarily change the situation; it amplifies it.”
According to the member of parliament the elections are over and the quality of life for the ordinary man and woman remains the same, that is, “they are no better off now than they were at the beginning of the Irfaan Ali government.” People’s standard of living has declined drastically due to the government’s absence of vision to put in place a poverty alleviation strategy, Forde countered.
He contended “when the PPP/C threw money at the people it amplified the fact the government is allocating resources disproportionately in certain parts. And that they can do much better for residents in certain areas, especially those residing in the southern section of Georgetown.” One can only imagine the pitiful state of the PPP/C without ready access to state resources, the M.P noted. Further, “it amplified that the party suffers from the poverty of trust and sincerity; people do not believe in or trust the PPP/C but would work with it to stave off vindictiveness and to survive.”
This is not a healthy political state and the PPP/C must take full responsibility for the decline, he advised.
