Former Councilor leaves PNCR
– he said, “Democracy dragged through a gutter”
Newly retired PNCR executive, Lennox Gasper
Kaieteur News – Former Municipal Councilor Lennox Gasper resigned from the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) yesterday, citing the party’s attempt to rig the March 2020 General and Regional Elections as the main reason for its decision.
In the March 3 resignation letter addressed to PNCR Secretary General Amna Ally, Gasper recalled that he had joined the political party “with the intention of helping him implement a governance and development agenda, with a view to serve the needs of the people of my town and Region, and by extension, the whole country. ”
Gasper, who had been a party member since 2016, wrote that he was convinced that the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU + AFC) coalition was going to “change the political culture of governance” in keeping with ‘ the interest in transforming the country into “a new release of accountability in development.”
He wrote his “high hopes” that when the Coalition came to power in 2015, it would have implemented a rapid development plan for Region 10, and set this against the party’s 23-year vision of the People’s Progressive / Civic Party (PPP / C) a rule that Linden has been “willfully neglected” and “underdeveloped.”
“This was also not the case,” noted Gasper, adding, “We pleaded at Linden for creating and developing jobs for four long years, as we watched with envy, as newer towns were prioritized.”
Further along the line of eyebrow signals, Gasper said, was former President David Granger’s choice to reward his ministers with a pay rise. He said, “As we waited and pleaded, scores of new taxes were blocked instead of easing our burdens. With lies, fraud and bullying, the majority coalition party controlled the narrative in Linden and threatened to punish any local leader who dared to criticize his / her actions. ”
Hundreds of thousands of people, he said, are now saddled with debt because they could not afford the ever-rising cost of living due to the albatross of the new taxes placed on the working and middle classes.
Despite those developments and the “shameful abandonment” of Gasper’s hometown of Linden, a former party member said he had campaigned “hard” for the coalition when it came close to the March 2020 elections, hoping, with another term, that grassroots frustrations would be adequately addressed and the deficiencies in governance rectified.
“This was also not the case,” wrote Gasper, “The party suffered a terrible loss in those elections fairly and squarely but chose to revert to its old Gestapo tactics of trying to rig the results in its favor, by dragging our hard won. democracy through the gutters for five long months. Throughout this period, there has been a blatant lie about the membership, in a web of fraud and manipulation with no transparent access to the Statement of Polls, which would surely have proved otherwise, had they been disclosed. “
He continued, “It was indeed an unbearably frightening experience that after 23 years the PNCR was under the coalition banner trying to rig the elections in the eyes of Guyanese and the rest of the world.”
Unsurprisingly, Gasper added, “Even as the country reflects this week on the events of the protracted elections, opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) took part in the most misguided tactics to dismantle this year’s budget by trampling openly on established parliament protocols and out completely disrespecting the Speaker of the House. ”
For the reasons stated above Gasper immediately submitted his resignation letter to the PNCR.
Notably, Gasper would be the coalition’s fifth Executive Officer who has since resigned following the events of the March 2020 elections. Kaieteur News reported last month that AFC Executive Joel Edmond had announced his resignation stating that the party “lost its way” . ” Prior to Edmond’s resignation, the coalition saw resignations from former AFC Members, Reynard Ward, Vladimir Glasgow, and Leonard Craig.