Dear Editor,
President Bharrat Jagdeo on August 11, 2011 at the Convention Centre said that young people needed to look back at the country’s history in order to defend its current progress. This is a statement loaded with deception.
Guyana’s history will tell us the following:
1. Guyanese have the PPP to thank for the tragic indignity of an imposed British settlement to our electoral system in 1964. The facts are the PPP delegation gave Duncan Sandys full power to settle the constitutional issues which in the end gave Guyana a PNC government.
2. The PPP actively courted the PNC in 1977, to form a National Front government by offering them critical support. This clearly demonstrates that the PPP and the PNC have always been two peas in the same pod and still are to this day.
3. The PPP has established its track record against those whom it thought would “split the vote,” as evidenced by Balram Singh Rai in the 1960s and Ravi Dev in the 1990s.
4. Were any of those young people in the Convention Centre told that a man in the room was building a house worth millions?
5. The PPP has a well established record of failing to enhance the economic well-being of the average Guyanese. Nothing done under this regime is sustainable; it is all patchwork. Where are the long-term jobs?
Where are the deliverables that prove that the personal security of the people has improved? Look at Le Repentir cemetery; this is classic LCDS in the making (growing more forest in the middle of the city).
6. In 2006, the PNC and PPP did a backroom deal to share the scruntineers’ money, shutting out all the other parliamentary parties in clear violation of the law.
7. The PPP and PNC conducted a covert coup d’état in 2006 in Regions 1, 4, 7, 8, 9 and 10 to exclude the AFC from governance in these regions.
What happened to the voices of the 29,000 people who voted AFC in 2006? The combined self interest of the PPP and PNC is always more important that the nation’s well-being. Watch carefully as the electoral race heats up. The PPP shall run to the bottom house and preach “don’t split the vote” and in the PNC case, they shall preach “marginalization.” If the people vote the same way then look out for more of the same.
8. While Donald Ramotar and the cabal shout at the top of their voices that they are all for the working class, they have basically become the new privileged class. These same people then turn around and call on the workers to “tek 5% and mek a sacrifice.” Well apparently they did not hear the Indian-Guyanese women from Bath settlement and the African-Guyanese man in Amelia’s Ward – “this struggulation too much now, enough is enough.”
There can be no peace and harmony in the land when the working class perceives a deep sense of injustice and marginalization at the hands of this PPP and PNC privileged class.
This is what makes the Alliance for Change (AFC) extremely relevant in today’s Guyana; we are filling a political vacuum that needs to be filled. The AFC is providing political leadership to the working class regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. We are the only political force that can honestly stand up and say we may all come from different backgrounds but we all have common challenges and we are all working for a common solution. A Cathy Hughes is powerful enough to influence policy in the AFC for people who share her background; likewise a Neilson McKenzie, a Fitz Ralph, a Rohan Somar, a Sixtus Edwards, a Sasenarine Singh, a Tarron Khemraj, a Martin Cheong, a Sarah Punilal, a Versammy Ramaya, and the list goes on. The AFC is not a Ramjattan party or a Trotman party or a Holder party or an Indian-Guyanese thing or an African-Guyanese thing; it is a Guyanese thing.
The only choice left to lead the people out of this period of underdevelopment is the AFC. We are ready, we are able and we are willing, and all we are asking the people is to give us one chance by voting for change. If after 5 years we do not deliver what should be delivered in that time period, then – kick us out.
Yours faithfully,
Sasenarine Singh