Dear Editor,
I have read with interest the comments made by President David Granger’s son-in-law, Minister Dominic Gaskin, in attempting to justify, and poorly so, the Alliance For Change’s (AFC) denial of being consulted on President Granger’s unilateral appointment of Reverend James Patterson as the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chairman. And also the denial of playing any part in the selection process, in face of the present AFC leader, Raphael Trotman, at the October 19, 2017 meeting between the President and the Opposition Leader.
The report in sections of the media on November 13, 2017 states, and rightly so, that as Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman would have had no reason to be present at the meeting, in any capacity, other than that of AFC leader.
Gaskin confirms that Trotman was present at the meeting between the President and the Opposition Leader because he is “the leader of the AFC” and “it is a recognition that we are a coalition Government.”
However, he then contradicts himself in defending the unilateral appointment of a GECOM Chairman by his father-in-law, by saying that the Constitution does not provide for consultations with any party, as the decision to choose a Chairman is placed on the President.
Gaskin cannot defend the AFC when it says it was not consulted and not part of the selection process used to arrive at a GECOM Chairman and at the same time defend his father-in-law as President. He cannot, using the proverbial term, “chew cane and blow whistle at the same time”. The AFC cannot be physically present when this egregious breach of the Constitution takes place and then pretend like “Pontius Pilate” that it washes its hands of its sin.
This latest pronouncement by yet another AFC leader points clearly to another manifestation of the ‘PNC faction’ in the AFC. Dr Henry Jeffrey and members of the AFC Canada Chapter recently publicly warned about this PNC faction.
Gaskin has exposed himself as an apologist for his father-in-law, President Granger, and the PNC, and, has gone so far as to hang his own party, the AFC, out on a limb.
Regards,
Gail Teixeira, MP