We must all reject this push by...

them. Hoyte relented and did the right thing. What Hoyte did in 1990 was that he placed his country first rather than his party and facilitated free and fair elections in 1992.

By and large, this nation, (not the PPP or PNC), took the sensible road to ensure that the Carter-Price Model was instituted for the 1992 elections. In a newspaper article written in the Stabroek News on April 7, 1991, Hoyte was quoted as saying that “he will seriously consider a list of five candidates supplied by the Opposition Leader”. History has shown that Cheddi Jagan provided those names and Hoyte extracted a name - Rudy Collins. All of Guyana (civil society, the political parties and the ordinary man with the full support from our friends in the international community) collectively rejected the 1985 system at that time and there is no reason to believe that my nation thinks differently today. So why is the PNC trying to go back to the 1985 system?

We must all reject this push by the PNC to go back to 1985. What that CarterPrice Model achieved was segregation of duties. In business, if one person selects the contractors, books the transactions, pays the bills, and reconciles the bank accounts, there is a strong possibility that you can very well be robbed because there are no checks and balance in the value chain. That is why in business we insist on segregation of duties to allow the internal control systems to protect the business. Similarly, this act of segregating of duties where the Leader of the Opposition selects the list of six names to submit to the Leader of Govern-ment who then selects one must be seen as one that is inclusive, one that protects the nation from autocratic actions, and one that encapsulated all the key ingredients of democracy.