David Arthur Granger (born 15 July 1945) is a retired military officer who served as the 9th
President of Guyana
The president of Guyana is the head of state and the head of government of Guyana, as well as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Republic, according to the Constitution of Guyana. The president is also the chancellor of the Or ...
from May 2015 to August 2020. He served for a time as Commander of the
Guyana Defence Force
The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) is the military of Guyana, established in 1965. It has military bases across the nation. The Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Force is always the incumbent President of Guyana.
History
The GDF was formed on 1 Nov ...
and subsequently as National Security Adviser from 1990 to 1992. He was
Leader of the Opposition in the
National Assembly of Guyana
The National Assembly is one of the two components of the Parliament of Guyana. Under Article 51 of the Constitution of Guyana, the Parliament of Guyana consists of the President and the National Assembly. The National Assembly has 65 members ele ...
from 2012 to 2015.
Granger stood as the opposition coalition's presidential candidate in the
November 2011 general election but was defeated. He was elected as President in the
May 2015 general election. He lost a vote of confidence on 21 December 2018 that led to a
snap election
A snap election is an election that is called earlier than the one that has been scheduled.
Generally, a snap election in a parliamentary system (the dissolution of parliament) is called to capitalize on an unusual electoral opportunity or to ...
.
Career
Born in
Georgetown, David Arthur Granger became a senior officer of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) by Prime Minister Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham.
He attended
Queen's College, one of Guyana's most prestigious schools, along the likes of Presidents
Forbes Burnham
Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham (20 February 1923 – 6 August 1985) was a Guyanese politician and the leader of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana from 1964 until his death in 1985. He served as Prime Minister of Guyana, Prime Minister from 1964 ...
,
Cheddi Jagan
Cheddi Berret Jagan (22 March 1918 – 6 March 1997) was a Guyanese politician and dentist who was first elected Chief Minister in 1953 and later Premier of British Guiana from 1961 to 1964. He later served as President of Guyana from 199 ...
,
Samuel Hinds and scholars
Walter Rodney
Walter Anthony Rodney (23 March 1942 – 13 June 1980) was a Guyanese historian, political activist and academic. His notable works include '' How Europe Underdeveloped Africa'', first published in 1972. Rodney was assassinated in Georgeto ...
and
Rupert Roopnaraine.
After leaving Queen's College, where he was a member of the Queen's College Cadet Corps, Granger joined the
Guyana Defence Force
The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) is the military of Guyana, established in 1965. It has military bases across the nation. The Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Force is always the incumbent President of Guyana.
History
The GDF was formed on 1 Nov ...
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
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
; the Jungle Warfare Instruction Centre in
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
; and the School of Infantry and the
Mons Officer Cadet School
Mons Officer Cadet School was a British military training establishment for officer cadets in Aldershot from 1942 to 1972, when it was closed and all officer training concentrated at Sandhurst.
Until 1960, it was known as the Mons Officer Cade ...
, respectively, in the UK.
He became commander of the
Guyana Defence Force
The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) is the military of Guyana, established in 1965. It has military bases across the nation. The Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Force is always the incumbent President of Guyana.
History
The GDF was formed on 1 Nov ...
in 1979 and was promoted to the rank of brigadier. In 1990, Granger was appointed as National Security Adviser to the President and retired from the military service in 1992.
Granger founded the ''Guyana Review'' news magazine in 1992 and served as its Managing Editor. He has researched and published essays on military, historical and media themes, and is also the author of ''Guyana's State Media: the quest for control'', and ''A Preliminary Study of Women Soldiers in the Anglophone Caribbean''. For the 1995–1996 academic year he was a Hubert H. Humphrey/Fulbright Fellow at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park.
In 2010, he made a successful bid to be elected as the presidential candidate of the People's National Congress–Reform for the
November 2011 general election.
Standing as the opposition coalition's presidential candidate, Granger was defeated by
Donald Ramotar
Donald Rabindranauth Ramotar (born 22 October 1950) is a Guyanese politician who was President of Guyana from 2011 to 2015. He was also the General Secretary of the People's Progressive Party (PPP) from 1997 to 2013.
Political career
Ramotar jo ...
. He was unanimously elected as
Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly on 16 January 2012.
Granger stood again as the presidential candidate of the opposition coalition,
APNU –
AFC, in the
11 May 2015 general election. The coalition secured the majority of votes, and Granger was sworn in as President of Guyana on 16 May 2015.
He lost a vote of no confidence on 21 December 2018, leading to a
snap election
A snap election is an election that is called earlier than the one that has been scheduled.
Generally, a snap election in a parliamentary system (the dissolution of parliament) is called to capitalize on an unusual electoral opportunity or to ...
.
2020 Elections
After losing the vote of No Confidence in December 2018, elections were held on 2 March 2020. The elections were overseen by many international entities such as the
Organisation of American States,
Carter Center
The Carter Center is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. He and his wife Rosalynn Carter partnered with Emory University just after his defeat in the 1980 United States presid ...
,
CARICOM and
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
. Initially, Granger and his party tried to claim victory on manipulated numbers.
He later tried to claim the elections were tainted by fraud and should be cancelled. Ultimately, a national recount of votes on the indicated a win for the opposing
People's Progressive Party presidential 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 Americas ...
. This is the third Guyanese President to attempt to win an election by rigging, the previous being Forbes Burnham and Desmond Hoyte, both from Granger's PNC party.
Education
Granger attended the prestigious institution of
Queen's College. He did some workshops from time and he was covered by the Army.
He attended the Urban Policy Development Workshop at the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...
; the Defense Planning and Resource Management course at the
National Defense University
The National Defense University (NDU) is an institution of higher education funded by the United States Department of Defense, intended to facilitate high-level education, training, and professional development of national security leaders. As ...
, Washington DC; and the Counter-Terrorism Educators' Workshop at the
Joint Special Operations University (Florida, USA).
Commander
Granger was Commander of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) and National Security Adviser to President Hoyte. He received his military training at the Mons Officer Cadet School, and the School of Infantry in the United Kingdom; the Jungle Warfare Instruction Centre in Brazil, and the Army Command and Staff College in Nigeria. He was a member of several defence and security agencies. He held the chairmanship of the Central Intelligence Committee; co-chairmanship of the Border and National Security Committee; and was a member of the Guyana Defence Board, National Drug Law Enforcement Committee, and the Disciplined Forces Commission. Granger has served in several public organisations.
Academic/Historian
He was elected to the presidencies of the History Society, the Guyana Heritage Society, the University of Guyana Guild of Graduates; and the Guyana Chess Federation. He was also a member of the University of Guyana Council, Association of Caribbean Historians, Caribbean Studies Association, Guyana Press Association, Guyana Book Foundation, and is currently a member of the Guyana Legion and the Board of Trustees of the Guyana Veterans Foundation.
Author
Granger has written extensively on national defence and public security issues. He is the author of ''National Defence: A Brief History of the Guyana Defence Force, 1965 – 2005''; ''Public Security: Criminal Violence and Policing in Guyana''; and ''Public Policy: The Crisis of Governance in Guyana''.
He wrote several monographs, including ''Five Thousand Day War: The Struggle for Haiti's Independence, 1789–1804''; ''The British Guiana Volunteer Force, 1948–1966''; ''The Guyana National Service, 1974–2000''; ''The Guyana People's Militia, 1976–1997''; ''The Queen's College Cadet Corps, 1889–1975''; ''Guyana's Coinage, 1808–2008''; ''The Era of Enslavement, 1638–1838''; and ''The Village Movement, 1839–1889''. He was co-editor, with Winston McGowan and James Rose, of ''Themes in African–Guyanese History'', and was publisher of the ''Guyana Review'' and ''Emancipation'' magazines.
Awards
Granger has received various academic awards, including the President's Medal for the best graduating student; Dennis Irvine Prize for the student who has made the greatest contribution to all cultural life of the university; Council of the University Prize; Elsa Goveia Medal of Excellence; Guy de Weever History Prize; Earl Attlee History Prize; Mary Noel Menezes Award for History; Department of History Prize and others, from the University of Guyana.
He also holds three national awards: the
Military Efficiency Medal (1976), the
Military Service Medal (1981), and the
Military Service Star (1985) for distinguished military service.
Personal life
Granger is married to
Sandra Granger
Sandra Marie Granger (née Chan-A-Sue; born 1947) is a retired Guyana, Guyanese academic and civil servant who was the First Lady of Guyana, as the wife of President David A. Granger.
Early life
Granger was born in the Bourda neighbourhood of Ge ...
(née Chan-A-Sue) and has two daughters, Han and Afuwa.
In November 2018, Granger was diagnosed with
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), also known as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is a group of blood cancers that includes all types of lymphomas except Hodgkin lymphomas. Symptoms include enlarged lymph nodes, fever, night sweats, weight loss, and tirednes ...
.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Granger, David A.
1945 births
Afro-Guyanese people
Graduates of the Mons Officer Cadet School
Guyanese writers
Guyanese military personnel
Living people
Members of the National Assembly (Guyana)
People from Georgetown, Guyana
People's National Congress (Guyana) politicians
Presidents of Guyana