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By Mark DaCosta. The reactions of Guyanese to a statement by President Ali announcing his acceptance of Nigel Dharamlall’s resignation have been angry, swift, consistent, and interesting. The statement from the Head of State was made public at about 21:00 hours (9 pm) last night – June 4. Citizens responded immediately on a variety of social media platforms.
The president statement follows one released by the Guyana Police Force (GPF) at about 17:00 hours (5 pm). The release by the GPF informed that there would be no further investigation into allegations of rape of a minor female by Nigel Dharamlall, Minister of Local Government and Regional Development.
In public posts and comments made last night via social media, citizens quickly pointed out that is is clear that it is the intent of the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) regime that Dharamlall should get way with the alleged crime of raping a child. Guyanese, in overwhelming numbers, angrily called for protest action.
One activist wrote, “We need to shut this country down.”
Meanwhile, this publication spoke with two analysts who made several points regarding the president’s statement, as well as the entire incident.
The following points were noted:
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The entirety of the PPP’s response appears to be “choreographed and carefully scripted; from Dharamlall’s ridiculous offer to go on administrative leave, to his offer to resign”
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Whether or not President Ali – or someone else – was responsible for the script is open to question, because, “The entire thing made the president look weak – like a lil boy – while Dharamlall seemed to be in control – offering this and offering that.
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“It is impossible to believe that the PPP, the police, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) were not in communication and collusion throughout the entire sordid affair. After all, we all know that the PPP interferes in everything – they even interfered in the Guyana Press Association’s elections; how could we possibly believe that the party was not fully involved in the efforts to let Dharamlall get off scott-free?” The PPP has its tentacles in every state office in this country, the analyst said.
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In his statement, “President Ali should have just accepted the resignation and left it at that. Instead, he stated – twice – that there was no interference in the investigation. Which Guyanese believes that?” The analyst said, “By making such a blatantly untrue statement — twice — the president absolutely opened himself to allegations of lying. And that makes me wonder who engineered that statement.”
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In the first paragraph of President Ali’s statement, he says that he is in Trinidad and Tobago. The analyst noted that, “That paragraph has absolutely no relationship and relevance to the rest of the statement. What was the president trying to do; was he trying to convince us that the statement was just at that moment being written? That out-of-place first paragraph absolutely convinced me that, that statement was written before President Ali left Guyana. I am convinced that everything, from the timing of the GPF press release to the exact timing of the President’s statement was planned in advance. And that timing has everything to do with two factors: 1. The fact that the United States’ Secretary of State is coming to Guyana on July 5; and 2, the PPP intended for the opposition to have little time to react to the resignation with any degree of force during the visit of the US official. The analyst noted.
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“I wonder if the lights are burning at Congress Place,” said a prominent commentator, “it is at times such a as these that Guyanese need strong leadership from the political opposition.”
