Chairman of the Burnham Foundation, Vincent Alexander is up arms over what he believes to be “undue attention” being given to comments made by former Prime Minister, Hamilton Green about elections rigging.
Green made the controversial comment last week during an event held to commemorate the birth of former Head of State and Founding Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham.
Green remarked that if President Burnham continues to be unjustly aligned with electoral rigging, then the party should keep doing that to rid the country of “devils, bastards and demons”.
The comment has led to a few raised eyebrows and condemnation from some sections of the populace, but the PNCR leadership continues to defend the elder statesman. The PNCR Leader, Aubrey Norton, who also leads the main Parliamentary Opposition, said that Green’s remark was taken out of context.
He said that Green’s statement was predicated on a condition: “If he (Burnham) is accused of rigging…”, thereby negating the comment as definitive.
Vice President of the country, Bharrat Jagdeo, begs to differ. In fact, he said Green’s statement was “outrageous”. He argued that Norton is only trying to defend Green by hinging his argument on a single word: ‘if’. The Vice President added that Green’s resort to offer such an extreme alternative, speaks to the “DNA” of the organization.
While the sides argue over semantics, Alexander has introduced the statement as one that extends beyond syntax to something within the pragmatic realm of language. He stated that Green’s comment was expressed “sarcastically”.
He expressed greater concern over the disproportionate focus on the sarcastic comment, noting that there were significant insights from other speakers, particularly Attorney-at-Law Nigel Hughes, which are essential for nation-building and fostering unity. He lamented that these valuable contributions, along with the event’s purpose, were disregarded by those fixated on exacerbating political division.
Hughes, in his address, proffered the idea that Guyana’s politics should be rebuilt from Ground-Zero. Ground-Zero represents that period in the 50s when like-minded political aspirants sought to foster ethnic unity as a precondition for nation building, including the attainment of independence.
According to Alexander, Hughes referenced the “shenanigans” that pervaded the society, following-on on the ‘ideological differences’ which led to the split of the PPP; shattered the effort of nation building; and resulted in the sustained anachronistic and adversarial politics to the detriment of nation building.
Alexander also spoke about Hughe’s commentary on the dissipation of political ideologies that once stood as an obstacle to unity and the urgent need to extinguish the existing issue of ethnic division.
“Unfortunately, rather than seeing this proposition as a moment for dialogue and rekindling the Ground-Zero moment, there are those who have sought to return to the shenanigans, which have kept us derailed, in their perpetuation of the politics of division, showmanship, righteousness, domination, political triumphalism,” Alexander said.
“[Instead], critics have limited the output of the symposium to a statement, on the floor, by Green, in which he contended that the current government epitomizes crass politicking, including blaming others for their deeds, including Apan Jaat and rigging. He sarcastically concluded that in the circumstance of being accused of rigging and given the crassness of the regime, then rigging may well be resorted to in an effort to save the country from what pertains,” the Chairman said.
He continued that the statement attributed to Green was but a “spec” of his contribution from the floor.
“Probably wrongly contextualized, given undue attention, and definitely, now being used to detract from the central thrust of the symposium: returning to ground zero in an effort to rekindle the nation building project,” Alexander noted.
