Geoffrey da Silva | |
|---|---|
| Guyanese Minister of Trade, Tourism and Industry | |
| In office 1999–2001 | |
| Guyanese Ambassador to Venezuela | |
| In office 2011–2015 | |
| Personal details | |
| Nationality |  Guyanese |
Geoffrey da Silva is a politician and administrator in Guyana. He was the Guyanese Minister of Trade,Tourism and Industry from 1999 to 2001 and later served as head of Guyana Investment (Go-Invest).
Da Silva has a degree from York University in Toronto,Ontario,Canada. [1] He was an employee of the Communist Party of Canada in the 1980s and ran as a Communist candidate at the federal and provincial levels. He also sought election for municipal office in Toronto. [2] The Communist Party was not a strong political force in Canada during this period,and da Silva never came close to winning election.
Da Silva was involved in the Guyanese liberation movement during his time in Canada,seeking the return of democracy in that country. [3] He was Guyana's Consul General to Toronto in the 1990s,and was interviewed by the Toronto Star newspaper following the death of Guyanese president Cheddi Jagan in 1997. [4]
Da Silva was appointed to the cabinet of President Bharrat Jagdeo on 19 November 1999,replacing the ailing Michael Shree Chan as minister of trade,tourism and industry. [5] As a participant in the Fourth Annual Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) Conference on Sustainable Tourism Development in 2000,he argued that Caribbean tourism would need to reflect a growing interest in ecotourism. [6] He also promoted sustainable tourism in the ecologically fragile area of Kaieteur and took part in negotiations toward completing a roadway with Brazil. [7] In February 2000,he led an official delegation that met with Prince Charles of the United Kingdom in his official visit to Guyana. [8]
Da Silva left cabinet following the 2001 elections and was appointed as head of Guyana Investment. [9] The following year,the Guyana and Caribbean Political and Cultural Center for Popular Education released an essay arguing that he had significantly improved the agency's ability to attract investors during his time in office. [10]
In 2005,da Silva argued that Guyana was creating jobs by diversifying its economy away from traditional crops such as bauxite and sugar. [11] He helped to organize the Guyana Trade and Investment Exposition in the same year,seeking increased Canadian investment in Guyana. [12] Notwithstanding his leftist political background,da Silva has called for increased private-sector involvement in Guyana's food packaging industry. [13]
In 2011,da Silva was appointed Ambassador to Venezuela [14] He served until 2015. [15]
| 1988 Canadian federal election : Eglinton—Lawrence | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Expenditures | |||
| Liberal | Joe Volpe | 20,446 | 51.02 | +8.04 | $33,611 | |||
| Progressive Conservative | Tony Abbott | 12,400 | 30.94 | −9.35 | $26,187 | |||
| New Democratic | Vittoria Levi | 6,241 | 15.57 | +0.68 | $16,036 | |||
| Libertarian | Sandor L. Hegedus | 538 | 1.34 | +0.51 | $0 | |||
| Communist | Geoffrey da Silva | 208 | 0.52 | +0.02 | $357 | |||
| Revolutionary Workers League | Margaret Manwaring | 123 | 0.31 | $776 | ||||
| Commonwealth of Canada | James Felicioni | 122 | 0.30 | $67 | ||||
| Total valid votes | 40,078 | 100.00 | ||||||
| Total rejected ballots | 565 | |||||||
| Turnout | 40,643 | 74.76 | ||||||
| Electors on the lists | 54,362 | |||||||
The politics of Guyana takes place in a framework of a representative democratic assembly-independent republic, whereby the President of Guyana is the head of government and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the President, advised by a cabinet. Legislative power is vested in both the President and the National Assembly of Guyana. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
The history of Guyana begins about 35,000 years ago with the arrival of humans coming from Eurasia. These migrants became the Carib and Arawak tribes, who met Alonso de Ojeda's first expedition from Spain in 1499 at the Essequibo River. In the ensuing colonial era, Guyana's government was defined by the successive policies of Spanish, French, Dutch, and British settlers. During the colonial period, Guyana's economy was focused on plantation agriculture, which initially depended on slave labor. Guyana saw major slave rebellions in 1763 and 1823. Following the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, 800,000 enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and South Africa were freed, resulting in plantations contracting indentured workers, mainly from India. Eventually, these Indians joined forces with Afro-Guyanese descendants of slaves to demand equal rights in government and society. After the Second World War, the British Empire pursued policy decolonization of its overseas territories, with independence granted to British Guiana on May 26, 1966. Following independence, Forbes Burnham of the rose to power, quickly becoming an authoritarian leader, pledging to bring socialism to Guyana. His power began to weaken following international attention brought to Guyana in wake of the Jonestown mass murder suicide in 1978.
Bharrat Jagdeo is a Guyanese politician who has been serving as Vice President of Guyana since 2020, in the administration of President Irfaan Ali. He had previously also held the office from 1997 until 1999, during the presidency of Janet Jagan. Jagdeo subsequently served as the President of Guyana from 11 August 1999 to 3 December 2011. He also holds a number of global leadership positions in the areas of sustainable development, green growth and climate change.
Samuel Archibald Anthony Hinds is a Guyanese politician who was Prime Minister of Guyana almost continuously from 1992 to 2015. He also briefly served as President of Guyana in 1997. He was awarded Guyana's highest national award, the Order of Excellence (O.E.) in 2011.
Samuel Rudolph "Rudy" Insanally is a Guyanese diplomat. He has been Guyana's Permanent Representative to the United Nations since 1987 and was Minister of Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guyana from 2001 to 2008.
Hugh Desmond Hoyte was a Guyanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Guyana from 1984 to 1985 and President of Guyana from 1985 until 1992.
Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham was a Guyanese politician and the leader of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana from 1964 until his death in 1985. He served as Premier of British Guiana from 1964 to 1966, Prime Minister of Guyana from 1964 to 1980 and then as the first Executive President of Guyana from 1980 to 1985. He is often regarded as a strongman who embraced his own version of socialism.
David Arthur Granger is a Guyana former politician and retired military officer who served as the ninth president of Guyana from 2015 to 2020. A member of the People’s National Congress (PNC), he previously served as Commander of the Guyana Defence Force and as National Security Adviser from 1990 to 1992. He was leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly of Guyana from 2012 to 2015.
Frederick Kissoon is a Guyanese journalist who writes the daily "Freddie Kissoon Column", currently published on TBN Heat. He also hosts a talk show with Leonard Gildarie.
Brazil–Guyana relations have traditionally been close. Brazil has provided military assistance to Guyana in the form of warfare training and logistics. Bilateral relations between the countries have recently increased, as a result of Brazil's new South-South foreign policy aimed to strengthen South American integration.
Bilateral relations have been established between the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and the United States of America.
The following is an alphabetical list of topics related to the Co-operative Republic of Guyana.
Barbados–Guyana relations refers to the current and historical relationship between Barbados and Guyana. The former maintains non-resident diplomatic representation from Bridgetown, while Guyana which prior had a High Commissioner to Barbados appointed its first resident Consul-General, Michael Brotherson to Bridgetown in January 2012.
Frank Woon-A-Tai is the chief instructor of the International Karate Daigaku, President of the Caribbean Karate College, Chief instructor and Chairman of the Guyana Karate College, and Chairman of IKD Canada and IKD Guyana. He is a tenth degree black belt in Shotokan Karate.
Guyana–Venezuela relations include diplomatic, economic and other interactions between the neighboring countries of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
The 2010 South American summit, took place in Georgetown, Guyana on November 26, 2010. Eight heads of state and four foreign ministers of the Union of South American Nations attended the summit. During the summit, the leaders signed an additional protocol to the Constitutive Treaty, adding a democratic clause to the charter of the organization. The Georgetown summit ended with the Ecuadorian president handing the UNASUR pro-tempore presidency for the next twelve months to his Guyanese counterpart, Bharrat Jagdeo.
Stewartville is a village district in Guyana on the Atlantic coast of West Demerara, just east of the mouth of the Essequibo River. There are four sections in the village: Stewartville Housing Scheme, Sarah Lodge, Stewartville Old Road and Stewartville Sea View.
Mohamed Irfaan Ali is a Guyanese politician serving as the tenth and current president of Guyana since 2020. A member of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), he previously served as the minister of Housing and water from 2009 to 2015. He is the first Muslim to hold office, and is the second Muslim head of state in the Americas after Noor Hassanali of Trinidad and Tobago.
Events in the year 2020 in Guyana.
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 from 2015 to 2018, representing the Alliance for Change party in the East Berbice-Corentyne region.