Well, we got the horses for the big sweepstakes coming up at Sophia – and it looks like it’ll beat anything that was ever held at the old Durban Park Racecourse!! If we take the number of nominations as an indicator of popularity among the rank and file – which is reasonable, since it’s the party groups that are supposed to’ve made these nominations! – then Norton seems to be the overwhelming favourite!! Out of the 218 groups, he supposedly bagged 177 nominations!! The others – in declining order of nominations – are Roysdale Forde, with 20 groups; Amanza Walton-Desir, with 9 groups; Carl Greenidge, with 4 groups; Simona Broomes, with 2 groups; Gary Best, with 2 groups; and Volda Lawrence, with 1 group.
But we know that no election – even for a dog catcher! – is ever so simple when it involves the PNC, innit?? The first fly in the ointment that’ll rise to the surface is the charge already made by Sister Lurlene: that Norton went around forming new groups and authorizing them – against the party’s constitution – to nominate and vote!! So, for sure, we’ll see the “Credentials Committee” being summoned to determine the bona fides of the groups!! And since the said gatekeeper committee was constituted by a Norton-dominated CEC, we know their determination ain’t gonna settle ANYTHING!!
That Carl Greenidge got only four nominations – if accurate – says a lot about the PNC’s base. Back in 2011, party leader Corbin had signalled the party was about to become “kinder and gentler” with his exit. Carl had challenged Granger for the leadership, and had lost by a very slim margin of 279 to 264 – after numerous calls for recounts!! He had taken his licks like a man for the good of the party, but – like Galileo after the Pope had forced him to recant about the earth, not the sun, moving – had muttered, “But I still won”!! Like Chalkdust had sung about the PNM and Karl Hudson-Phillips’s challenge, Granger had muttered, “Ah too ‘fraid ah Karl!!”
Anyhow, your Eyewitness thinks Greenidge will withdraw because, once again, he’ll take it on the chin for the PNC; even though he’s easily the best candidate from the PNC to pull votes from across the various divides – to win an election without cheating!! In terms of the other contestants, your Eyewitness doesn’t give Forde a chance: he’s trying too hard to channel Burnham, and it only exposes how far he’s not – not in political cunning, law or wit!!
Desir has attracted wide attention but, sadly, she’s only remembered for her crack that “Indian Guyanese are mentally lazy”!! Brings her to the level of Volda and, “only my friends who are PNC can get jobs”! And Broomes, with her fried-rice rage!!
…on corruption?
The Mericans just dropped a bombshell on the Guyanese political, economic and social landscape. In scale for us, it’s gotta be bigger than “Fat Man” – the atomic bomb they dropped on Nagasaki!! They’re alleging that one of the largest business groups in Guyana – and by far one of the most visible – has been using various stratagems – including bribing Government employees – to defraud the Government of billions of G$ from gold exports!!
The Government immediately said the GRA’s gonna be seeking concrete details about the allegations; since, if it’s one thing we know, our GRA bloodhounds don’t mess around when it comes to collecting their slice of the action!! Remember they’ve taken on even Exxon – along with their broker – for that misrepresentation of imports? The scale of this bombshell will reverberate for years – just like Fat Man’s. That one created damage to all in its invisible rays’ path – which took years to manifest.
We expect a lot of folks are shaking in their boots!!
…and reaction
The day before the bombshell US release, proof that the Govt had no nexus was shown when we got highest rating on money-laundering efforts from the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) that included high US officials.
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