“Elections are about records and elections are about the future. We have a proud record that we can stand on. We don’t have to hide from our past. We don’t need to change our name,” President Donald Ramotar told a PPP/C campaign rally attended by about five hundred people at Wismar, Linden on Sunday.
“The only people who change their name are criminals, bandits and scamps. We are not fooled; APNU is the PNC… and we have to ensure that on May 11 the PPP/C will return by an absolute majority in Parliament,” Ramotar said.
The rally, chaired by Minister in the Ministry of Finance Juan Edghill, was attended primarily by people from the upper reaches of the Demerara and Berbice rivers and from the East Bank of Demerara, who travelled to Linden in route 42 minibuses as well as others, who travelled from the coast in a larger bus, which was emblazoned on its two sides with large PPP/C signage.
Former President Bharrat Jagdeo, Public Works Minister Robeson Benn, Prime Minister Sam Hinds, Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon and prime ministerial candidate Elisabeth Harper also addressed the three-hour rally.
Ramotar, who took to the podium amidst an uproar of laughter and to the bouncy chutney tune “PPP is the party for we,” exhorted the gathering to ensure that on May 11, they vote for the PPP/C to ensure that Guyana continues on its current course.
“Never before has our country had the economic management that it has today in Guyana,” he stressed as he highlighted that the country has been transformed with positive economic growth over the last nine years.
He said because the government has invested in the people of the country, it has been able to progress despite the opposition making every effort to create obstacles. “Before the PPP came to office, the PNC used to spend more money on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs than they spent on health, education, housing, water and agriculture put together. They were doing that because while they were destroying our country, when they were sending people to jail for having flour and potatoes and sardine and corn beef… they wanted to tell the outside world that everything was hunky dory here,” he said.
Ramotar added that the biggest sector of the economy is now the social sector. “More than 30 per cent goes to education. Where in the world do you hear a government giving their students all their text books, all their exercise books, school uniforms?” he asked before pointing out that last year the government “gave every parent (of children in public schools) $10,000.” He added that the opposition wanted to cut the money but noted that the grant was to encourage parents to keep their children in school. He also noted that his administration provides meals in schools. “In that way, we are helping you to keep your cost of living down … and, moreover, we spend money to have a TV education channel so instead of watching the Young and Restless, you can also look at the education programmes that we have. Comrades, all these things we have done in the face of serious opposition. The same PNC now, who are talking about education… went in the last budget and cut the fund that we have to lend students money to attend the University of Guyana. How can they talk about young people? How can they talk about youths?” he questioned, before adding that if the PPP/C is reelected it would establish projects that would create more jobs for the young people.
