‘Not interested!’
…says elections a must in 2011
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo has rubbished claims he sought legal opinions of his running for a third term at the upcoming national elections, which he said neither he nor his government has any intention of delaying past the end of this year. “As it relates to a third term, I have had many people from my party, from the business community, from some opposition parties lobby me to pursue a third term. My answer is, and has been, uniformly ‘no’. I am not interested in pursuing a third term. It was I who signed the new Constitution into effect. It was my signature that brought in term limits. I have to respect the Constitution that I put in place and so I have absolutely no interest in a third term,” the President declared.

He was at the time speaking at a news conference he hosted at the Presidential Complex in Georgetown during which he addressed several matters of national importance.

Asking the question of why this issue keeps cropping up from time to time, President Jagdeo postulated that two groups of people have raised this: politicians and the media, namely the Kaieteur News and the Stabroek News. “And they are all basically in the same camp.”

He said that up to a few days ago, Leader of the Opposition Robert Corbin said the President sought three opinions from three legal sources as to whether Guyana’s Constitution could be changed to allow for the President to serve an additional term in office. “This is absolutely untrue. I never sought any legal opinion from anyone,” the President said.

But he noted that in a conversation with Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission, Dr. Steve Surujbally, he learned that the Commission sought the opinion of its legal officer as to whether the third term could be possible.

“So any opinion being sought did not come from Jagdeo. It came from the Commission in their planning process. Now, I am very upset with the Chairman and the Commission for doing this, because they should never second-guess me. I have made it clear that this is not an issue, so why should they be seeking a legal opinion whether this is possible?” he questioned.

“If that is what Corbin heard then he is either misled or is misleading,” Mr. Jagdeo said.

As it relates to the two other opinions that he (the President) is alleged to have sought, Mr. Jagdeo had this to say:  “I don’t know. He (Corbin) will have no credibility unless he names who these other two legal luminaries are that I have sought these opinions from. It could not be me, because I am not interested. The Constitution is clear so I am not interested in that.”

DEAL OR NO DEAL
He also spoke of Leader of the Alliance For Change, Khemraj Ramjattan, who, according to the President, is saying that there is “some deal with the PNC” in the making.

“There can be no deal. I have publicly said that I hope that eventually we would find a medium for all the parties to work together and I still strongly believe in that. But that does not mean that we are going to delay elections for that purpose. In fact we are not the ones talking about constitutional change. It is the opposition that is talking about constitutional change and some elements who are saying that we should delay elections so that we could have constitutional change. I am not interested in delaying any elections,” the President told reporters yesterday.
“I said in my New Year’s speech that this is election year, so there will be no attempt on the part of me or my government to delay these elections. This is election year and constitutionally we have to hold elections by December 31. And they will be held in the constitutional period,” he said.

NO EXCUSES
He said further that he did not want to give the PNC and the other opposition parties any excuse for questioning the list or the process of free and fair elections.

“Years ago when we had to spend [almost] $2 billion for a completely new registration – and the donors were all here and the PNC – we signed an MOU that should we have new registration to form the basis on which we do continuous registration, come 2011, the opposition parties are not going to use the list as a scapegoat again. The PNC signed on to that,” he pointed out.