PPP presidential candidate Irfaan Ali has clarified what he described as government’s “one-sided” account of the meeting between Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo and President David Granger earlier today.
Ali had accompanied Jagdeo during the meeting which was held at State House.
See full statement below:
I feel compelled to respond to a press release from the Government in relation to a meeting held today between the President, Leader of the Opposition, Joseph Harmon and Irfaan Ali giving the one-sided nature of this release.
The release only emphasized what the President said at the meeting, I, therefore, wish to set the record straight. In his opening remarks, the Leader of the Opposition made reference to his letter requesting the dissolving of Parliament, naming of elections date and the resignation of the cabinet. He further highlighted the weird interpretation of the CCJ ruling and constitution by some members of Government.
The Leader of the Opposition pointed to the requirement both in the Constitution and in the CCJ’s ruling that indicates that the Cabinet should resign. He said not to do so meant non-compliance with the Constitution.
He further read sections of the CCJ’s consequential order which clearly obligate the President and Gecom to comply with article 106 of the Constitution. He pointed out that the CCJ argued that it did not set a date but the timeline holding of elections is unambiguous and did not need interpretation to make them intelligible.
He said that after September 18 the country will enter a period of unconstitutional rule.
He urged the President to discharge his responsibility and dissolve the Parliament and name a date for elections.
He explained to the President that the reason that there was a recourse to the court to stop the house to house registration was the absence of the commission and the use of the secretly gazetted order signed by the former chairman of Gecom Justice Patterson.
He shared a copy of the work plan of the Secretariat presented to the Commission in March 2019 which shows HTH registration, if adjusted for the delays in starting the field exercise, resulting in a new NRR early next year.
He concluded we cannot talk about credible elections in a timely manner and insist on discarding a time tested National Register of Registrants in favor of a new database that is now nonexistent, will have several flaws and will take several months to create.
