Max­ie Cuffie

"(Forbes) Burn­ham has con­fid­ed to close col­leagues that he in­tends to re­main in pow­er in­def­i­nite­ly–if at all pos­si­ble by con­sti­tu­tion­al means. How­ev­er, if nec­es­sary, he is pre­pared to em­ploy un­ortho­dox meth­ods to achieve his aims."

–CIA, Di­rec­tor of Op­er­a­tions Files, Job 89�00998R, Latin Amer­i­can Di­vi­sion. Se­cret (De­clas­si­fied).

Not since the regime of late Guyanese pres­i­dent Forbes Burn­ham has any Cari­com leader at­tempt­ed to use their coun­try's con­sti­tu­tion to un­abashed­ly en­trench their par­ty in pow­er. What is even scari­er is that all the pro­pos­als an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last Mon­day for de­bate to­mor­row are in­trin­si­cal­ly un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic and if ap­proved, have the po­ten­tial to take us down the road to Guyana.

In Or­wellian dou­ble­s­peak, the amend­ments are be­ing tout­ed as an at­tempt to strength­en democ­ra­cy.

And giv­en Fri­day's news on the sec­ond thoughts of Mer­le Hodge on the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Na­tion­al Con­sul­ta­tion on Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form Com­mit­tee, in which she was ba­si­cal­ly re­quest­ing a runoff on the runoff pro­pos­als, it is clear that the com­mit­tee mem­bers were all cap­tive to group­think. It is in keep­ing with Per­sad-Bisses­sar's Burn­ham-like pen­chant for at­tempt­ing to use Par­lia­ment to en­trench her par­ty's elec­toral posi­ton, as she has done in every elec­tion so far.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers