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April 10, 2011 | By KNews | Filed Under News

(This is the first in a series of articles featuring the

leading Presidential Candidates. This week David
Granger details his plans to win the presidency and
speaks candidly about the PNC¶s losing streak and
what he perceives were the errors)

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When an internal squabble dislocated its support base,

the main opposition People¶s National Congress Reform
(PNCR) had to settle for both defeat and lesser seats in
the National Assembly following the 2006 general
elections.

Party leader Robert Corbin could not recover from

repeated challenges to unseat him from the highest
office at Congress Place and chose to send the signal
early that he was not interested in running again for
President.

David Granger was personally not interested in

contesting the nomination, and up to September 2010, he was actually a part of the panel that
was tasked with guiding the process that would lead to the naming of a presidential candidate.

However, as the process kicked in, many started looking in Granger¶s direction. They felt that he
would be the ideal candidate to reverse the PNC¶s losing streak since the historic 1992 elections,
when the party, then under the late Hugh Desmond Hoyte, was unseated from its 28-year grip on
power, marred by allegations of rigged elections and destructive economic policies ± all blamed
on the machinations of then PNC founder Forbes Burnham.

Granger is not ready to admit the elections under Burnham were rigged.

³I don¶t have evidence that they were rigged,´ Granger said in an interview with Kaieteur News.
³You¶ll have to look at the record. The record as far as the PPP is concerned is that the elections
were rigged. I¶ve heard people say that; I personally never rigged anything.´

The ruling PPP, through President BharratJagdeo, has accused Granger of having blood on his
hands owing to an incident surrounding the 1973 elections when three of the PPP¶s supporters
were killed in Berbice when the government tasked the Army with transporting ballot boxes.
He was then stationed at Atkinson Field, now Timehri Airport. Second, Mr. Granger was not at
that time in the management and control of the Guyana Defence Force. Third, he was not a
member of the Directorate of the PNCR or the Government,´ the PNCR has said in defenceof
Granger against the attacks.

The PPP refers to the three persons killed as the ³Ballot Box´ martyrs, but Granger places their
death squarely at the feet of the PPP owing to antagonistic tactics pursued by PPP founder
DrCheddiJagan, as is highlighted in the Commission of Inquiry report by Justice
DhanessarJhappan.

According to Granger, Jhappan attributed blame to DrJagan who was regarded as provocative in
his speeches, which incited young people to ³take some actions which ended up being to their
detriment.´

Granger charges that it was Jagan who instructed PPP supporters to prevent the removal of ballot
boxes from polling stations and as a result of this they engaged in a tussle with soldiers who were
instructed by the Army to protect the ballot boxes.

The PPP has sought to discredit the Jhappan report, claiming the Commission was set up by the
PNC regime with the intention to cover up the crime and justify the murders. But Granger is
unfazed.

³I don¶t have blood on my hands; I was not there. I never killed anyone in my life.´

Granger is unapologetic about having always espoused the values of the PNC and its founder
leader Burnham, but he is ready to bring his own strategy to erase the problems he sees in
Guyana. With his stellar academic and military education, Granger is ready to fight for the job.

 
David Granger was born to parents Chetwynd and Verleigh Granger. His father served as a
Police officer and his mother worked as a nurse. He grew up in Bartica and at Whim on the
Corentyne Coast, and in Georgetown where the family moved when he was about nine years old.
By then, his young mind was moulded by the church, even if it confused him to have been
exposed, at that young age, to three denominations of Christianity.

He was born into an Anglican family, was baptized in Christ Church and sang in the choir at
Christ Church. When he married Sandra Chan-A-Sue in 1970, it was at Christ Church. Later,
they took their children, Han (who now runs Topaz Jewellery Shop) and Afuwa (who lives
overseas) to Christ Church.

Granger seems guarded about his family life; or at least hesistant to put them in the spotlight just
yet. He respectfully declined to make available any portraits for publication at this time.
But back to his childhood years. In Bartica, he attended St John¶s Anglican School and on the
Corentyne Coast, Auchlyne Primary. When the family moved to Georgetown, he attended the
Moravian School.

Later, he moved on to Queen¶s College, where he completed his µO¶ and µA¶ Levels.
While at Queen¶s College, he had enlisted in the Cadet Corps and served as president of the
Historical and Debating Society.

During those school years, classes were disrupted with the strikes and ethnic strife. It was the
early ¶60s.

³It was a memorable period for the wrong reason, mainly because it disrupted our education.´

Celebrating Christmas with senior citizens in Plaisance Village

He completed schooling at Queen¶s College in 1964 and enrolled in the University of Guyana
the following year, sitting in the same space that served as his school classroom, given that the
University was then housed there.

His university education was interrupted though by his call to the Army.

He joined the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) as an officer cadet in 1965 and was commissioned
as a second Lieutenant in 1966. He received his professional military training at the Army
Command and Staff College in Nigeria; the Jungle Warfare Instruction Centre in Manaus, Brazil;
and the School of Infantry and the Mons Officer Cadet School, respectively, in the United
Kingdom.

During his military service, he held a variety of appointments including planning officer for the
establishment of the Guyana National Service (1973-74) and the Guyana People¶s Militia (1976-
77). He also led military delegations to Brazil, Cuba, Germany, Guinea, Korea, Somalia and
Yugoslavia.

Granger would eventually complete his university education, graduating with the Master of
Social Science Degree in Political Science, and the Bachelor of Arts Degree in History, from the
University of Guyana; and the post-graduate diploma in International Relations from the
University of the West Indies.

He was also an Internal Fellow on the Defence Planning and Resource Management Seminar at
the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies of the National Defense University and attended the
Counterterrorism Educators¶ Workshop at the Joint Special Operations University, Florida, USA.
He also received a Hubert Humphrey Journalism Fellowship and that served him well when he
founded the monthly magazine ³Guyana Review,´ which is now published by the Stabroek
News.

He has presented several papers on defence and security topics to international and national
academic conferences including: ³Civil Violence, Domestic Terrorism and Internal Security in
Guyana, 1953-2003´; ³Convention and Convenience: A Preliminary Study of Women Soldiers
in the Anglophone Caribbean with Special Reference to the Women¶s Army Corps of the
Guyana Defence Force, 1967-2002Ǝ; and, Defence and Diplomacy in the Subordinate System:
The Experience of Guyana´.

Granger retired from military service with the rank of a Brigadier in 1994 after serving as
National Security Adviser to the President (1990-94) and as Commander of the GDF (1979-90).
He is a former member of the Disciplined Forces Commission; Co-Chairman of the Border and
National Security Committee; Member of the National Security Strategy Planning Committee;
Chairman of the Central Intelligence Committee; Member of the National Drug Law
Enforcement Committee; and Member of the Guyana Defence Board.

Granger received the Military Service Star; Military Service Medal; Efficiency Medal; Border
Defence Medal; and other service awards.


A life in politics seemed inevitable for Granger. As a young boy, he was part of the young
socialist movement and became sympathetic to aims and objectives of the PNC under Burnham,
who among other things was averse to aligning the country with the Soviet bloc and continued to
have relations with the East and West.

He describes Burnham as a visionary and nationalist, who had a clear idea of where he wanted
the country to go in terms of its natural resources. Burnham, Granger says, felt Guyanese could
manage the country as well as Europeans and even better.

Granger posits that Burnham also sought to free women from male domination. He points out
that Burnham was committed to regionalism and this was seen in him making Guyana one of the
four founder members of the Caribbean Community and helped institute the Caribbean Festival
of Arts.
In military terms, Granger respected Burnham¶s judgments, crediting him with building a
defence force which was capable of defending the country against secession in 1969 and other
threats against Guyana¶s territorial interests.

However, he does not agree with everything Burnham did. On the economic front, he calls an
³error´ Burnham¶s move to nationalize transnational corporations, because, Granger surmises,
Guyana did not have the capability of maintaining those corporations, particularly sugar and
bauxite and to some extent, the banking system.

³Although those decisions were greeted by academics and others in the country, it turned out to
be unwise.´

Despite this disagreement with Burnham, Granger sees the PNC Founder Leader as ³a visionary
leader who laid the foundation for a truly independent state.´

Paying homage to the colours on his retirement.

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Granger believes he can command the sort of respect Burnham did with party loyalists and he is
already seeing results. Indeed, it has to be the first order of the day. The PNC has to win back its
supporters.

³I think particularly in the last election there was a state of challenge within the party and some
members did not contribute as in previous years,´ Granger says. He believes that this poor
mobilization resulted in the low turnout. With Granger though, things are turning around.

³Many people have started to return; we¶ve issued a come home call,´ a smiling Granger says.

He believes that disenchanted PNC supporters voted for the Alliance For Change (AFC) mainly
because of Raphael Trotman, who served as a Parliamentarian for the PNC but became
disenchanted himself and joined with KhemrajRamjattan, who was ousted from the PPP, and
formed the AFC.
But now, he said the problems which forced the PNC¶s supporters to leave and join the AFC,
have been removed and they are now returning.

There is a sense of euphoria that overtakes him when he talks of PNC supporters ³coming back
in droves,´ and especially those who are not afraid to stand up and declare themselves to be the
figurative ³prodigal sons´ returning ³home.´

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Being a security expert, many see Granger being able to effectively arrest crime in the country,
but he wants to be seen as someone who is committed to ³human development.´

Of course, crime has to be addressed. Public security is paramount for him since he sees crime as
the greatest threat to human development.

³The first thing is to create a safe environment so Guyanese in the diaspora and foreigners will
invest,´ he says, but argues that this is not just a matter of attracting more investment but making
the ordinary man feel safe.

He says there are too many gun crimes and murders plaguing the society. If he were to be elected
President, Granger says he will reform the Guyana Police Force, making sure it is properly
equipped. His plan includes weeding out incompetent and dishonest officers who don¶t fit into a
professional police service.

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His other priority would be the education system and making life better for teachers.

³That is the section of the public servants that will turn this country around.´

In recent memory, he counts about 15 schools which were shut down by parents and teachers
because of the state of disrepair of those schools.

But at the root of his plan to address the deficiencies in the education sector is ensuring that
teachers are properly trained and adequately remunerated.

By making teachers the highest paid public servants (and he throws in the ³read my lips´ line for
emphasis) Granger wants to reverse the migration of highly qualified teachers to places such as
Botswana, Belize and the Bahamas. His plan is simple: make teachers the most highly paid in the
public service.

Further, he plans to address what he considers widespread unemployment across the country.
In the hinterland, for example, he says the current PPP/C government has demonstrated that it is
incapable of bring real development, and finding jobs to especially young people.

His plan has groundings in the agriculture sector.

Granger believes the economy could be better integrated if there is a robust agriculture drive in
all regions. The problem he sees is that there aren¶t agricultural institutes in all the regions,
despite the fact that agriculture is the basis of the economy.

He plans to set up such institutes, because without them, the young people cannot be trained and
are hence deprived of a career in agriculture, with the country losing out on production.

Granger plans to create a micro-credit scheme, so those who want to get into agriculture would
have the capital to do so.

He says the money to address all of this will come from taxes. Though he is not explicit in saying
that if he gets into power he will reduce the 16% Value Added Tax (VAT), he is quick to
describe the current rate of VAT as ³oppressive on the backs of working people.´




Dealing with corruption, Granger says if elected President, he would not pursue a vendetta
against anyone who is thought to have engaged or facilitated corruption under the current
government, but he insists the law must be obeyed.

³If people are known to have broken the law, I expect the Police Force and the courts will ensure
the law is complied with.´

As indicated earlier, crime, unemployment, the education sector and corruption, are but a few of
Granger¶s plans if he moves into the Presidential Complex in New Garden Street.

But for now, he must deal with the main competition from the PPP and its new presidential
candidate Donald Ramotar, though he doesn¶t see much of a challenge.

³Ramotar has got a tremendous job ahead of him,´ Granger says confidently.

³I don¶t think the PPP can win this election on the basis of its record,´ he insists. For Granger,
while there might be evidence of infrastructural development the PPP boasts of, the quality of
life of Guyanese has not improved, and he points to the increasing number of street children and
older destitute ones as a clear sign.

³Guyana is building drop-in centres and night shelters instead of laboratories, instead of science
institutes.´

For Granger, this could be the election where Guyana can split from a history of race-based
politics which has seen Indo-Guyanese voting for the PPP and Afro-Guyanese for the PNC.

But he accuses the PPP of fuelling the culture of fear which has characterised elections in
Guyana.

He cites the example of a public servant whose daughter attended a meeting he held at Lichfield
in Berbice and was transferred to Mahdia.
Granger claims people of various ethnicities have said they would like to support his campaign
but they fear victimization.

³There is fear; those tactics are terroristic tactics.´

If that fear is removed, he believes there can be a clear campaign based on issues and definite
plans for developing Guyana.

Granger believes that with the right strategy and a good woman by his side, as Prime Ministerial
candidate, he could lead the PNC to victory at this year¶s polls.

(http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2011/04/10/david-granger-promises-hope-revival-and-
purposeful-leadership/)