THE recent two-day virtual Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) meeting held on Monday comprised persons who were part of a process to derail democracy, President, Dr. Irfaan Ali said on Thursday. Emphasising that the ERC was not only silent during the attempted rigging of the 2020 elections, the President said, “in the midst of the ERC discussion, persons who were part of a process to derail democracy were present.” “How did they arrive at the names for the panel?” he asked.
At the ERC virtual meeting, several panelists and participants made presentations under the theme: “How can we improve ethnic relations in Guyana?”
“One of the pressing issues we faced over the last five months was that of an elections, where democracy was under threat, every single stakeholder in Guyana agrees that democracy was under threat, but the ERC did not issue a single statement. The ERC went into hiding. The ERC has a responsibility to the country to stand up and to recognise when there is wrong, and I did not see this from the ERC,” President Irfaan Ali said
The Head of State said he is aware that there have been many discussions in the public domain on the functioning of the ERC, issues surrounding the minority reports and disagreements among commissioners.

These are among several other issues that the body needs to sort out internally before dealing with external issues, he contended.
“These are things that they have to sort out and then you have a function organised by the ERC. Through what mechanism did they determine who were making the presentation? The same questions the Guyanese people are asking: how did they determine who would make the presentations? You can’t just pop up names, there have to be some sort of consultation, some sort of dialogue,” the President pointed out.
President Ali said he has a Minister of Governance and Parliamentary Affairs who the ERC did not have the courtesy of contacting. However, he was contacted via email but decided not to participate because of the aforementioned reasons.

“I have been leading this country in a manner in which I have been reaching out, in a manner in which I am consulting and I think all stakeholders need to understand this,” the President added.
The ERC, in a bid to address the country’s long-standing issues surrounding race and ethnic relations, on Monday opened a national discussion on the factors that impede ethnic harmony.
The ERC is expected to collect all recommendations made and put them into a formal document to be submitted to the National Assembly and relevant stakeholders for consideration and implementation.
Some of the persons making presentations on the issue of race relations were Attorney, Nigel Hughes; UG Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Paloma Mohammed-Martin; Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Lenox Shuman; Professor David Hinds; ROAR activist, Ravi Dev; Public Relations consultant, Christopher ‘Kit’ Nascimento and independent consultant, Renata Chuck-a-Sang.