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Charrandas Persaud is a Canadian-Guyanese lawyer and politician, who was Guyana's High Commissioner to India from March 2021 to October 2022. He was a member of the Guyanese
National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...
from 2015 to 2018, representing the Alliance for Change party in the
East Berbice-Corentyne East Berbice-Corentyne (Region 6) is one of ten regions in Guyana covering the whole of the east of the country. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the north, the Nickerie District and Sipaliwini District of Suriname to the east, Brazil to the sou ...
region (Region 6).


Personal life

Persaud was born in Guyana, and moved to Canada in the 1970s and later obtained a real estate license. He returned to Guyana in 1999 and studied law at
University of Guyana The University of Guyana, in Georgetown, Guyana, is Guyana's national higher education institution. It was established in April 1963 with the following Mission: "To discover, generate, disseminate, and apply knowledge of the highest standard fo ...
.


Career

As a politician, Persaud was a member of the Alliance for Change (AFC) party. He joined the AFC in 2011, and campaigned for the AFC in
Berbice Berbice is a region along the Berbice River in Guyana, which was between 1627 and 1792 a colony of the Dutch West India Company and between 1792 to 1815 a colony of the Dutch state. After having been ceded to the United Kingdom of Great Britain ...
. In 2013, Persaud left the AFC for two months, believing that he wasn't receiving due credit for his campaigning work. At the
2015 Guyanese general election Early general elections were held in Guyana on 11 May 2015, alongside regional elections as a result of President Donald Ramotar proroguing the National Assembly. The result was a victory for the APNU– Alliance for Change alliance, which won ...
, Persaud was elected to represent Region 6,
East Berbice-Corentyne East Berbice-Corentyne (Region 6) is one of ten regions in Guyana covering the whole of the east of the country. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the north, the Nickerie District and Sipaliwini District of Suriname to the east, Brazil to the sou ...
. The AFC formed a coalition government with
A Partnership for National Unity A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) is a left-wing political alliance in Guyana. History The APNU was formed in July 2011 in order to contest the 2011 general elections,Commonwealth Secretariat (2012)l. ''Guyana National and Regional Elec ...
(APNU). As an Assembly member, Persaud worked on a bill to control the sale and use of tobacco in Guyana. The bill passed in July 2017. In late 2018, Persaud supported the government's budget for 2019. Persaud was critical of the government's downsizing of the Guyanese sugar industry, which he argued cost thousands of jobs. He also believed that the AFC was just blindly supporting APNU policies, and was particularly critical of a pension bill by
prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
Hamilton Green Hamilton Belal Green (born 9 November 1934) is a Guyanese politician who served as the fourth Prime Minister of Guyana. He is the first and only Muslim Prime Minister of Guyana, along with being the first and only Muslim Prime Minister in the W ...
.


No-confidence vote controversy

In December 2018, Persaud voted against the AFC in a
vote of no confidence A motion of no confidence, also variously called a vote of no confidence, no-confidence motion, motion of confidence, or vote of confidence, is a statement or vote about whether a person in a position of responsibility like in government or mana ...
tabled by the opposition People's Progressive Party (PPP). As a result of his vote, the vote was lost by the government by 33 votes to 32, triggering a
general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
. Persaud says that it was "the only time in three and half years as a Parliamentarian that I voted according to my conscience". After the vote, Persaud was expelled from the AFC party, and was removed as an assembly member. Persaud also received death threats. The day after the vote, he fled to Toronto, Canada, via
Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate ...
, fearing for his safety as Guyana has a history of political assassinations. After reaching Canada, Persaud chose not to pledge allegiance to any Guyanese political party, but criticised a number of AFC politicians including Prime Minister
Moses Nagamootoo Moses Veerasammy Nagamootoo ( Tamil: மோசஸ் வீராசாமி நாகமுத்து; born 30 November 1947) is a Guyanese politician, writer and novelist who served as the Prime Minister of Guyana under former President D ...
,
Khemraj Ramjattan Khemraj Ramjattan (born 12 October 1960) is a Guyanese politician and one of the founders of Alliance for Change.http://parliament.gov.gy/new2/about-parliament/parliamentarian/khemraj-ramjattan From May 2015 to August 2020, he served as Minis ...
, and
Raphael Trotman Raphael Trotman (born 1966) is a Guyanese lawyer and politician. He was the Speaker of the National Assembly of Guyana from 2011 to 2015. He was the country's Minister for Natural Resources from 2015 to 2020. A former executive member of the ...
. Persaud was replaced by APNU's Barbara Pilgrim in the National Assembly. Pilgrim had been an APNU candidate in Region 6 at the 2015 election. In Guyana, there were multiple judicial reviews of the vote, claiming that 34 votes should have been needed for the vote to stand, and that Persaud should have been ineligible to vote due to his dual Canadian nationality. One allegation was that Persaud was not a Guyanese citizen. The no confidence vote was eventually upheld, triggering the
2020 Guyanese general election Snap general elections were held in Guyana on 2 March 2020. They were called early after the government of President David A. Granger lost a vote of no confidence by a margin of 33–32 on 21 December 2018,
. Persaud endorsed PPC candidate
Irfaan Ali Mohamed Irfaan Ali (born 25 April 1980) is a Guyanese politician who has served as the tenth and current president of Guyana since 2020. He is the first Muslim to hold the office, along with being the second Muslim head of state in the Americ ...
for the 2020 Guyanese election. In the court case, it was ruled that dual citizens could not be members of the Guyana National Assembly, forcing four government ministers to resign. Persaud denied allegations that he was bribed or coerced to vote with the PPP. In March 2019, Persaud filed a $30 million lawsuit against Khemraj Ramjattan for libel relating to the vote of no confidence and a subsequent investigation started by Ramjattan. During the investigation, Persaud admitted to working on a 1 million
USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
gold deal for clients.


High commissioner

In March 2021, Persaud was appointed Guyana's High Commissioner to India. He was removed from his position in October 2022 after a video became viral of him insulting a woman for enquiring about a stray dog that lived in Persaud's compound. Persaud’s driver had killed the dog.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Persaud, Charrandas Year of birth missing (living people) Indo-Guyanese people 21st-century Guyanese lawyers Living people Members of the National Assembly (Guyana) Alliance for Change (Guyana) politicians People from Georgetown, Guyana University of Toronto Faculty of Law alumni High Commissioners of Guyana to India Guyanese expatriates in Canada 20th-century Guyanese lawyers