GENERAL-SECRETARY of the ruling party, Clement Rohee, has stressed that the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) is not the sole party responsible for the delayed hosting of local government elections.

And he slammed the Stabroek News for riding the ‘hobby horse’ as it relates to laying blame over the delayed move to the polls.
“There seems to be a view out there, which is peddled by certain media houses, that the PPP and the Government are the sole parties responsible for the non-holding of local government elections….people are riding a hobby horse that the PPP is holding up local government elections,” Rohee said yesterday at a news conference at Freedom House.
The General-Secretary called for an “objective appraisal” of the facts and the factors that have contributed to the delayed hosting of local government elections.
“The PPP has never held up the holding of local government elections,” he said emphatically.

HIDDEN AGENDA
Reading a statement that made clear the party’s position on the matter, Rohee said that the daily page one comments, published by the paper, are viewed as a deliberate attempt to spread misinformation and distortions about the facts surrounding the non-holding of the long overdue Local Government Elections.
He said, “The Party has noted the newspaper’s page one comments and its attempts to besmirch the Party and Government by continuously printing comments and statements from the Opposition political party and other entities which are closely aligned to the parliamentary combined Opposition political parties.”
According to him, Stabroek News has been transformed into a “political organ” and therefore can no longer refer to itself as an independent daily newspaper.
Rohee said, “Its postures on critical issues pertaining to local government elections have exposed its efforts at fulfilling the wishes of politicians opposed to the PPP Party and Government.
“By utilising its front page the Stabroek News is pursuing a hardline political agenda against the Government by publishing statements and even making declarations about the need for local government elections without sufficiently publishing the facts surrounding the delay in holding these elections.”
The General-Secretary charged that the Stabroek News is in “serious breach of the journalistic ethics” governing the industry by adopting an outright biased position, thus placing the newspaper objectively on the side of the political Opposition.
“It is for this reason that we believe that the classification of the newspaper as an “Oposition media” is justified as it continues to neglect and downplay the Government’s explanation as to why these elections have not been held and why they cannot be called with haste,” he said.
Rohee clarified for the media that the classification of the daily as “Opposition media” is the political characterisation of the newspaper, given the position it has taken.
“The Stabroek News has ignored the Party’s mounting concerns about the state of preparedness of the Guyana Elections Commission to hold elections in a fair and free manner without causing widespread disenfranchisement to thousands of Guyanese,” he said.
To this end, the General-Secretary furnished a copy of a background brief on the holding of local government elections in Guyana.
“When newspapers publishes certain things, which they have a right to, except it being libelous, a political party should have the right to reply…this is what we are doing….anyone is free to publish anything he considers publishable, but we reserve the right to respond to anything we find is harmful to the party’s interest. This is what we are doing, this is a democracy,” Rohee concluded.
Written By Vanessa Narine