Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo says based on comments made by Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency Joseph Harmon Thursday, he is not heading into a planned meeting with President David Granger with any “high expectations.”
“I don’t have high expectations of this meeting,” Jagdeo told a press conference ahead of the meeting Thursday.
He is slated to meet with President Granger at 15:00hrs at the Ministry of the Presidency to discuss the appointment of a new Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) following the ruling of the Caribbean Court of Justice that the process used to appoint Justice (rt’d) James Patterson was flawed.
Following its ruling, the CCJ had urged both sides “to communicate with each other in good faith and to perhaps even meet to discuss the eligibility of each candidate for Chairman before the list is formally submitted.”
But Government took that to mean that the President can now submit six of his names for consideration of the GECOM Chair – an interpretation that Jagdeo does not agree with.
“The constitution does not say I have to get names from Granger,” the Opposition Leader said.
Jagdeo said he is going to the meeting with one purpose and that is to discuss a new Chairman and in keeping with his constitutional duty.
“I am going there because there is no chairman of GECOM, I have a constitutional duty to submit six names…not to have long debates about what the CCJ ruling is or the interpretation of the CCJ ruling,” Jagdeo said.
According to the Opposition Leader, he has accepted the CCJ’s advise that the President can ‘formally’ submit names of persons he wants as a GECOM chair but at the end of the day he [Jagdeo] has to be comfortable with the names.
“The CCJ must be looking on with great interest in how this Government is operating.
“APNU is not bigger than the constitution nor Harmon,” Jagdeo said.
