…Braithwaite rips PPP ‘evil agenda’
…urges coalition to amend confidence motion before voting on it

THE no-confidence motion against the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) Government is a “twisted” and “sinister” plot, Cultural Activist, Barrington Braithwaite has said, as he alluded to glaring attempts by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) to capitalise on President David Granger’s illness to unseat the prime minister, and forge ahead with its agenda.

The motion, which will be debated in the National Assembly on Friday, was submitted to the Parliament Office in mid-November, days after it was announced that President Granger was suffering from Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, a type of cancer, and would require constant treatments abroad.

The opposition, in December, then requested that the Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo vacate his seat in the National Assembly whenever he performs the functions of the President but the Speaker of the House, Dr. Barton Scotland has asked that the matter be dealt with by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Constitutional Reform.

Putting his life at risk
Describing the President as a “decent and incorruptible person,” Braithwaite contended that part of the plot was intended to have the President put his life at risk by flying home against medical precautions. “To callously exploit the condition of the President’s illness during this period with such a plot requires the condition of a psychopath, in the absence of any legitimate grounds leaves no other explanation, but to allude to the fact that there are mental defects masquerading as normal in our political opposition, so obsessed with power and the pillage of power that nothing is above or below what they will do,” Braithwaite argued. “This is an evil motion and an evil agenda,” Braithwaite said.

According to him, the APNU+AFC must address the matter. “Amend this motion; treat this desperate and callous move to impose self-serving carnage as it should be treated,” he urged. Braithwaite asked “what are the opposition’s grounds, when the sugar workers are paid, the nation is moving towards a ‘Green’ sensible future; our streets and communities are experiencing uplifting developments from efforts made; our creative citizens will benefit from laws to protect them.” “In a worldwide economic contraction, our lives are not malaise by drive-by shootings and lawlessness. We understand better our survival conflicts and at least can envisage a way forward.”

In one of his most recent actions, the opposition attempted to defer the motion to January, 2019 but the prime minister objected. In a statement on Monday, Prime Minister Nagamootoo said “let it be heard and let it be defeated,” noting there is no point in taking this deadweight motion into the new year.

“Jagdeo is acutely aware that the motion has no prospect of success, and it is an abuse of parliamentary time and waste of taxpayers’ money to convene a sitting of the National Assembly only to be told that he (Jagdeo) is not ready or prepared. As the mover of the motion, he would be better advised to withdraw the motion, not to defer its rejection.
The prime minister also called out the opposition leader and team for exploiting the President’s illness. “We know too that the Jagdeo-led opposition has caused the Guyanese people some distress and hurt by unconscionably attempting to exploit the illness of President David Granger to unseat me as prime minister. They then resisted the pro-people $300.7 Billion 2019 Budget. Both gambits failed to derail the parliament and government. The resort to a no-confidence motion is the third in a tripod of destabilisation, and it is also doomed to failure. The correct and honourable thing for Jagdeo is not to postpone his defeat but to withdraw the motion,” he said.

Observers believe that the occurrence of all of these events in succession is no coincidence, and is all a part of a conscious plot by the opposition to heartlessly put pressure on the President during a most vulnerable time in his life.