President Ali Only Pays Lip Service to Good Governance, Democracy

Dear Editor,

Without reference or deference to the text of the President`s recent Address to the Nation, I wish to comment on what that address signaled in relation to democracy and governance, in Guyana, under the administration of the People’s Progressive Party and Ali`s presidency.

It has been the practice of previous Presidents/Heads of State, including President Ali, to address the nation, at the commencement of the term of a newly elected administration, using a sitting of Parliament as the platform. This practice is also universal.

The significance of such an address is to layout to the nation the government`s intended programme for the period of its mandate. Parliament is deemed to be the suitable forum for such an address since it has the constitutional responsibility to hammer-out the policy, legislative, and programmatic frameworks of the government.

That President Ali has opted to depart from that convention and in so doing excluded parliamentarians from those whose presence was acknowledged, if at all they were invited, suggests the diminution of the parliament, notwithstanding its constitutional role.

As if this is not an oversight or an ill-advised course of action, it should be noted that it represents an established trend of President Ali to ignore and/or by-pass the elected representatives of the people, while touting inclusion at the same time.

His past treatment of the Leader of the Opposition and his declaration at a community meeting in Mocha-Arcadia that there was no need for him to speak to local representatives are but examples of his disrespectful, brazen, autocratic and undemocratic disposition and that of other government officials.

It is further exemplified by the matter in which the first sitting of parliament was unduly delayed; the failure, after approximately eight weeks, to have another sitting; the apparent refusal to conduct the election of the Leader of the Opposition; and the convening of an alternate public forum to deliver the conventional Presidential Address.

There seems to be lip-service to good-governance and democracy but blatant omissions of the practice, while the noose of compliance, by the citizenry, is increasingly tightened.

Yours truly,

Vincent Alexander