Guyanese OnlineSynopsis: 8 m/s to 12 m/s winds are currently being observed in the Atlantic Ocean adjacent to Guyana’s coast. These windy conditions are expected to continue through Monday 4 January, 2021.
Associated conditions: These high winds are generating north-easterly to easterly waves with heights in excess of 3.0 m in open waters and with periods between 9 s and 12 s. The highest waves, in excess of 3.5 m (9 ft – 11 ft), are expected beginning tonight through Sunday afternoon. Continue reading
Ralph Ramkarran
SHARED GOVERNANCE
Conversation Tree Blog – January 12, 2019 – by Ralph Ramkarran
In a lengthy article written in 2011 before the general elections of that year, for “Freedom House” on “Countries at the Crossroads 2011: Guyana,” Assistant Professor Joan Mars, of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice of the University of Michigan-Flint, said: “Elections are constitutionally due to be held in 2011.
Calls by the political opposition for shared governance have not been endorsed by the ruling PPP/C administration headed by President Jagdeo; with its consistent absolute majority in parliament, the PPP/C has had little incentive to agree to share power, but the idea may be gathering momentum as a major rallying point in the forthcoming elections.“ Assistant Professor Mars, a former practising lawyer in Guyana, concluded: “The current system of majority rule should be reformed to provide for a power-sharing model that is representative of the ethnic diversity in the population. Continue reading
Download Flyer: Caribbean North Concert
CHEDDI JAGAN’S CONTRIBUTION TO GUYANA’S INDEPENDENCE
Ralph Ramkarran
Inspired by events that were occurring in the wider world and influenced by progressive views while he was a student in the United States, Dr. Cheddi Jagan returned to Guyana in 1943, then British Guiana, intent on becoming politically involved on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged. He chose the trade union movement as an entrance point. Ashton Chase and Jocelyn Hubbard, both trade unionists, were sought out to join with him and Janet Jagan to form the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) on November 6, 1946, as a study and discussion group.
Branches emerged in various places including Kitty, Buxton and Enmore. My father, Boysie Ramkarran, joined the Kitty Group in 1947. Ashton Chase, at the 50th Anniversary celebrations of the PAC said that my father was the Secretary of that group. Eusi Kwayana was active in the Buxton group. Continue reading
Ralph Ramkarran
Posted on July 18, 2015 – by Ralph Ramkarran – Conversation Tree Blog
It is only fair that the traditional honeymoon period of three months of the new APNU+AFC administration be exhausted before its performance is assessed. The Government has a plan against which a judgment will be made. It is called the hundred-day programme. Little is heard of it nowadays but we, the people, who are intended to be its beneficiaries, are looking forward anxiously to its fulfillment.
The public is not familiar with the inner workings of Governments and we acknowledge that urgent events are demanding attention. Last week it was the heavy rains and flooding which required top priority – a 4 am Cabinet meeting. It is not known if all Ministers were able to make it. Continue reading
Ralph Ramkarran
Posted on April 25, 2015
The OAS Observer Mission, the British High Commissioner, the United States Representative and the Private Sector Commission have all publicly raised concerns about the dangers of inflammatory language being used in the election campaign in Guyana. The US representative went further and pointed out that the consequences that such language could endanger post-election peace and stability.
The pit bull politics of aggression and personal villification were launched this elections season, as it was at the last elections, with Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo. The elections of 2011 were characterized by the excessive use of hostile and accusatory language, focused mainly on the PNCR’s past and abuse of political opponents. Continue reading
President Jimmy Carter
When the US Government under President Bush decided in 1990 that it would support free and fair elections in Guyana, it was the Carter Centre that was called upon to act as the midwife for a new era of democracy in Guyana. Even though the Hoyte government’s lifeline of international financial and diplomatic support had been partially severed, the government still resisted the reforms demanded by the then opposition. It required the renowned stature and nuanced diplomatic skills of President Carter to negotiate the necessary concessions that would guarantee free and fair elections. President Carter’s name will remain forever associated with Guyana’s democracy.
President Carter and the Carter Centre remained engaged with Guyana. It established a permanent office, mounted a second full observer mission for the 2001 elections and conducted a focused observation for the 2006 elections. On both occasions it concluded that the elections were free and fair. Continue reading
Ralph Ramkarran
Posted on April 4, 2015
Since the restoration of free and fair elections in Guyana, the only election results that have been accepted were those of 1992, even though they, and most other elections since then, were accompanied by violence, particularly after the elections. The Opposition castigated the 2011 elections alleging ‘discrepancies,’ although admitting that the results would not have been affected. The PPP went further and alleged that the 2011 elections were rigged against it.
The consequences of the failure to accept election results have been devastating to Guyana. It results, after most elections, in serious post-election violence, which causes damage to property, injury and loss to innocent people and harm to Guyana. It further exacerbates ethnic tension, which the elections campaign would already have whipped up, drives fear in the population and generates a feeling of uncertainty in the minds of investors. Continue reading
Ralph Ramkarran
Posted on March 21, 2015
In an article for my blog, www.conversationtree.gy, published in SN last Sunday, I took issue with a statement by former President Jagdeo that implied that Cheddi and Janet Jagan lived in luxury. His argument that the Jagans lived such a lifestyle, comparable to his own at the time his house was built, was an attempt to justify his own Cadillac lifestyle, which over the past few years has come under severe scrutiny and criticism.
There were outraged responses by many people to Jagdeo’s statement, including from Clem Seecharran and, more indirectly, Peter Fraser, two distinguished Guyanese historians living and working in the UK. But the most telling came from Nadira Jagan-Brancier, the Jagan daughter, Dr. Tulsie Dyal Singh and Sadie Amin. Dr. Singh, who conferred with Dr Jagan about his medical condition just before he died and visited his home, said that his own family home in Palmyra on the Corentyne when he was growing up in the 1950s was of similar size to the Jagan home. Sadie Amin gave a description of the modest lifestyle and home of the Jagans, including its leaking roof. Continue reading
GUYANA Politics: That “Bloated” Electoral List – by Ralph Ramkarran
In 2010 I wrote an article on the overseas vote in which I argued that the Constitution of Guyana permitted all Guyanese citizens over the age of 18 to vote. Since there was no residence stipulation, Guyanese residing overseas have a right to vote. As readers would imagine, it elicited some controversy. I was a member of the leadership of the PPP at that time.
Mr. Robert Corbin, then leader of the PNCR, in a masterful display of irony, accused the PPP of seeking to re-introduce the overseas vote which, incidentally, the PNC had facilitated and grossly manipulated in the 1968 elections so much so that voters were registered as residing at the address of a horse pasture in the UK. Continue reading →
Share this: