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FM
Former Member

THE RETURN OF BIG B?

December 9, 2014, By Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source - Kaieteur News

 

The Mirror newspaper which is associated with the ruling party this past weekend gave front page significance to the PPP’s congratulations to Tabare Vazquez, the President-elect of Uruguay.


I hope the opposition parties, especially the heady Alliance for Change (AFC), are paying attention. I hope that they are “reading between the lines”.


The PPP has never in recent times given such significance to any President-elect of any South American country or to any leftist leader who was elected to office. Not in recent times! So, why Tabare Vazquez, the President of Uruguay, a country which is not a neighbour or even a trading partner with Guyana?


The front page feature by the Mirror is not a gesture of comradely solidarity. Vasquez, the incoming President and Jose Mujica, the incumbent are leftists. But the PPP is not forging any leftist alliances. In fact, the PPP is far removed from its leftist roots. So why the front page coverage of the congratulations to Vazquez?


The PPP is not enamored with the leaders of Uruguay’s Broad Front. It is not trying to imitate the lifestyle of the incumbent Mujica who drives an old Volkswagen to work. He wears leather slippers rather than shoes to work. He joins the line for treatment at the hospital. He donates more than 90 per cent of his salary to the poor. And the incumbent President lives on an old-ramshackle farm owned by his wife. So why the front page coverage of the congratulations to Vazquez?


The PPP after the experience of being toppled by the Americans in the 1960’s are never going to be as radical and anti-imperialist as the incoming President of Uruguay, Tabare Vazquez. So why the front page coverage of the party’s congratulations to Vasquez?


The significance I believe has to do with the fact that Vazquez is returning after a break of one term. Vazquez was President of Uruguay from 2005 to 2010. Jose Mujica succeeded him from 2010 to 2015. Vazquez now returns from a second term. The Constitution of Uruguay does not allow for consecutive terms. As such, Vazquez had to sit out a term and wait until the end of Mujica’s five-year term before he could have returned which is what will happen as a result of his recent election victory.


The Constitution of Uruguay is explicit. It unambiguously states that a president cannot be reelected until five years has elapsed since the end of his term. As such there is no consecutive term. But a president can be reelected after a gap of five years. There is no ambiguity in the wording of the Uruguayan Constitution. There was also never any need in that country for any challenge to the constitutionality of term limits.


In Guyana of course there is at least one legal opinion that a President who has served two terms after 2001 can be reelected for a third term once there is an interruption between the end of his second term and the beginning of a new term. The opposition does not agree with this opinion but it must bear certain facts in mind.


If the PPP goes with Bharrat Jagdeo for the forthcoming elections, once he is elected as President, regardless of the legality of his candidacy, he is insulated from removal by the Constitution which states that a suit cannot be brought against a sitting President. So once the Guyana Elections Commission announces that Bharrat Jagdeo is the duly elected winner of any election next year, no legal challenge will succeed since the Presidency is immune from such challenges.


The opposition parties may feel that the PPP will not go this route. But then again, these same parties did not feel that Donald Ramotar would have prorogued parliament. They may also feel that the PPP before announcing the candidacy of Bharrat Jagdeo as the party’s presidential candidate for the 2015 elections would likely approach the Courts for an interpretation as to whether Guyana’s Constitution allows a third term for a President first elected after 2001.


The opposition had better be careful. If Jagdeo returns they will be caught off guard since all of their preparations for elections are being made on the presumption that it is Ramotar that will lead the PPP into the elections.


If Jagdeo is the candidate it puts a different complexion on things.


The opposition parties were out maneuvered by Ramotar when he moved to prorogation. They had better be wary that they are not outfoxed again when it comes to the person they are likely to face in the 2015 polls.


They should preempt the PPP. The opposition parties should immediately, as a safeguard, seek the interpretation of the Courts on this controversial issue of the third term because it is one thing to face Ramotar but it is another thing to face Jagdeo. He may be controversial but he is no pushover.


Surprises are not good for the opposition. They have been caught napping before.  They should avoid being caught off guard.

 

Source - http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....the-return-of-big-b/

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Originally Posted by Demerara_Guy:
If Jagdeo is the candidate it puts a different complexion on things.


The opposition parties were out maneuvered by Ramotar when he moved to prorogation. They had better be wary that they are not outfoxed again when it comes to the person they are likely to face in the 2015 polls.


They should preempt the PPP. The opposition parties should immediately, as a safeguard, seek the interpretation of the Courts on this controversial issue of the third term because it is one thing to face Ramotar but it is another thing to face Jagdeo. He may be controversial but he is no pushover.

 

 

THE RETURN OF BIG B?, December 9, 2014, By Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source - Kaieteur News

FM

A THIRD TERM FOR PRESIDENT JAGDEO?

August 13, 2009, By Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source - Kaieteur News

 

A picture appeared in one of the daily newspapers showing President Bharrat Jagdeo sandwiched between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.  The photograph was shot during the swearing in of President Rafael Correa of Ecuador for a second term.


It showed President Chavez to the left of President Jagdeo and President Zelaya to the right. Quite unmannerly, President Chavez is leaning across President Jagdeo and shaking hands with his deposed friend and ally, Manuel Zelaya.


Our own President Jagdeo is sitting there with a smile on his face, amused by something but at the same time with his thoughts seemingly far away. What was he thinking?


Could it be that like both men have done quite controversially in their own countries, he was contemplating holding a referendum to amend our own Constitution?


There has been speculation in Guyana in recent weeks about a possible third term for our President, something that would require a change of our constitution either by a two-thirds majority or by changes wrought through a referendum.


There has been speculation within legal circles that our Constitution can be amended to provide for a third term for the President without either a two-thirds majority or a referendum. This matter is presently being researched and this column will keep the public abreast as to whether this can be done.


Whether it can be or not is of pure academic interest. Our President  had however made it clear in April of this year, while attending the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, that he is not interested in a third term. And he must be taken at his word. But the speculation has resurfaced following an alleged poll which was said to have been conducted recently and which showed that if President Bharrat Jagdeo were to receive the nomination of his party, he would be reelected as President.


I do not know what the pollster was thinking when he surveyed that particular aspect but anyone familiar with the politics of Guyana would advise that you do not need a poll for that fact to be confirmed. The PPP is a solid party and knows how to win elections. While it still enjoys, in the main, the ethnic vote of East Indians, the PPP knows how to win elections freely and fairly.


It does not matter who is the candidate. You can take a child and dress him how you want and that child will win the elections once he or she is on the PPP slate. So, we do not need any poll to inform us that President Jagdeo will win the elections if he wins his party’s nomination. Whoever wins the PPP nomination, even if it is Roger Luncheon, will win the next elections in Guyana. It is as simple as that.


This resurrection of the idea of a third term for President Bharrat Jagdeo is simply a diversionary tactic and an attempt to redeem the flagging popularity of the President and one of his underlings. It comes at a time when there have been damaging disclosures on the political front as well as the confirmation that the sugar industry last year suffered its worst ever financial loss, to the tune of four billion dollars.


There is no need for any talk about a third term for President Bharrat Jagdeo. The man has clearly indicated that he is not interested in a third term. While in small, challenging societies like Guyana, the idea of limiting the number of terms of a leader of a country is itself a self-defeating limitation since no leader can effectively entrench the direction in which he wishes to move an underdeveloped country within two five year terms, the experience that Guyanese have suffered under President Jagdeo’s tenure would tend to suggest that it would be better if when the time comes for President Jagdeo to leave office that he does so gracefully and that his allies do not try to foist any talk of a third term for him on Guyanese.


Under the Constitution of Guyana, a President cannot be elected for more than two elected terms in office. President Jagdeo in technical sense had three terms already. The first was the unfinished term of Mrs. Janet Jagan from 1999 to 2001, his first elected term from 2001-2006 and his second and final term from 2006 to when elections are due in two years’ time.


There is only so much that a leader can do in two terms. Two terms are not good enough for any President to make his mark. But in the case of President Jagdeo, two elected terms is long enough. The PPP will find another presidential candidate to contest those elections and that candidate will win. The Guyanese people will welcome a new PPP President in 2011.

 

Source - http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....or-president-jagdeo/

FM
Originally Posted by skeldon_man:
Originally Posted by Demerara_Guy:

BIG-B as in big big bamboo, also Cobra?

So you ah seh dat de PPP guh give PNC and AFC "a piece of the big big bamboo"?

One of the options.

FM
Originally Posted by Demerara_Guy:
Originally Posted by skeldon_man:
Originally Posted by Demerara_Guy:

BIG-B as in big big bamboo, also Cobra?

So you ah seh dat de PPP guh give PNC and AFC "a piece of the big big bamboo"?

One of the options.

big B love the big bamboo,why you think them bais in Miami  had to plug up his ass 

FM
Originally Posted by warrior:
Originally Posted by Demerara_Guy:
Originally Posted by skeldon_man:
Originally Posted by Demerara_Guy:

BIG-B as in big big bamboo, also Cobra?

So you ah seh dat de PPP guh give PNC and AFC "a piece of the big big bamboo"?

One of the options.

big B love the big bamboo,why you think them bais in Miami  had to plug up his ass 

You know big B love the big bamboo, you give he already Mr. Benwood Dick.

FM
Originally Posted by skeldon_man:
Originally Posted by warrior:
Originally Posted by Demerara_Guy:
Originally Posted by skeldon_man:
Originally Posted by Demerara_Guy:

BIG-B as in big big bamboo, also Cobra?

So you ah seh dat de PPP guh give PNC and AFC "a piece of the big big bamboo"?

One of the options.

big B love the big bamboo,why you think them bais in Miami  had to plug up his ass 

You know big B love the big bamboo, you give he already Mr. Benwood Dick.

come on don't get jealous 

FM
Originally Posted by cain:

Perhaps this time if that corrupt bastard is elected, the US sends him  a drone and blow that MOF to bits.

Why the U.S., Canada don't have drones?  Elected by democratic means America can't blow up the will of the Guyanese people.

FM

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