I drove up to Anil Nandlall’s wife--Freddie Kissoon

JUNE 10, 2015 | BY KNEWS | FILED UNDER FEATURES / COLUMNISTS, FREDDIE KISSOON

The PPP Government fell on the stroke of midnight of May 11, so that would be the morning of May 12. It was a silly defeat, because astute politics could have carried the PPP into a second minority government in 2016. There would not have been a no-confidence intention if the Ramotar minority government had dealt with APNU behind the back of the AFC and made concessions to the AFC behind the back of APNU. Both opposition parties had things on their respective minds that they wanted and commonsense and realpolitik had to be employed by the minority government to keep its power intact. The AFC made it pellucid; it wanted the Procurement Commission in exchange for voting for Amaila Falls. APNU wanted the local government Bills to be passed. In fact, the Ramotar administration got some generosity from APNU without APNU getting any goody in return. For example, APNU voted for the Cricket Administration Bill. What would have happened is that from 2014 to 2016, both AFC and APNU would have been in a concessionary relationship with the PPP and there would have been a three-way race once again. It is very likely that against a landscape of compromise the PPP would have won in 2016, but again as a minority. What the PPP didn’t know in 2011 it has now discovered in June 2015 – the meaning of democracy. So Anil Nandlall and Molly Hassan of NCN are speaking up about what democracy is all about. One hopes that PPP supporters are listening and will frown upon these Christopher Columbuses. Take Molly Hassan. She berates the coalition government for lack of professionalism. Does Hassan know the meaning of the word? According to her close colleague, Raymond Azeez, who rang me last Saturday morning, Mrs. Hassan needs to be exposed. My advice to him is that he should do so and do it immediately. If he doesn’t then I may be inclined to play the tape. I would urge Azeez through this page to go public with what he described to me. Hassan has called into question the integrity of the new Guyana Government. From what Azeez told me how Hassan operated as his boss at NCN, then he too should go public. Then we have Anil Nandlall. He chastised the Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan, for ordering the dismissal of Corporal Dolai from the police force for torturing an accused youth. Where was Nandlall when his government was doing more than just firing public servants? If Molly Hassan and Anil Nandlall had advised their superiors in government of observing the rules of justice and fair play, then the PPP regime might still be in power today. According to Nandlall, he is speaking out on the Dolai dismissal in defence of the principles of natural justice and the rule of law. When did Nandlall discover these sacred values? I had a very good relation with Nandlall when he was my student at UG. I say without hesitation that he was one of the brightest students that I had at UG. I knew his wife long before he married her. She too was a student at UG. After he became a lawyer he did free human rights work for me which I will always remember him for. I was really surprised that such a man with the potential to be a very erudite lawyer would join the PPP. One day I drove behind his wife on Sheriff Street and I pulled up after she came out of her car at her home. She asked me in, but I told her I preferred to speak outside. My talk was on the abrupt termination of my UG contract five months before its expiration by the PPP Council members at UG. I expressed disappointment that Anil Nandlall did not advise the Ramotar Government against it, since it was a nasty violation of the principles of natural justice, the very words Nandlall employed in denouncing the firing of Dolai. She was sympathetic to me and I think it is best not to repeat what she told me. Nandlall could ask her after he reads this article. It would help the future credibility of Anil Nandlall, Molly Hassan, Raymond Azeez and others if they can go public with their denunciations of what happened to people like me, attorney Gino Persaud, former Chief Education Officer Genevieve Whyte-Nedd, and thousands of others like us whom the PPP denied justice for over twenty-two years. If only the PPP over those years knew what justice was, Nandlall would have still been the Attorney-General.