Valerie Garrido-Lowe may be a new face in the National Assembly but she is certainly not new to the world of politics, and her experience in the last few months has only served to strengthen her resolve to fight for equal rights and justice for the down trodden, she says.
Five months ago Garrido-Lowe was working towards becoming a member of the National Assembly but not as a representative of the Alliance For Change (AFC); rather it was as the leader and presidential candidate for The United Force (TUF). But a very public spat between her faction of the party and those who supported former leader Manzoor Nadir saw her and those who supported her moving to the AFC just before Nomination Day for elections last year.
Today she has been named an AFC member of parliament and has been given the task of representing the hinterland areas for the party. While she describes the last few months of her life as very frightening the new parliamentarian said that she would keep on fighting.
In a recent interview with the Sunday Stabroek Garrido-Lowe said that she would be focusing on the Amerindians and their lives and bettering their standard of living.
“Some Guyanese tend to look down at Amerindians… and even if they don’t want to do it or don’t even know they are doing it, they do it. Somehow they feel that they are better and that these [the Amerindians] are lowly people. Well I want to change that; these are not lowly people, these are citizens of Guyana who were here not only before you but [who have] an equal right to every single privilege and benefit that you have here,” Garrido-Lowe said quite passionately.
The mother of two said that when people say ‘Amerindian‘ they should not do it with a “superiority air but with the air of my fellow Guyanese.”
The Moruca born parliamentarian pointed out that Amerindians are starved for information and many of them do not have access to education or proper health care, and she hopes that these are some of the issues that could be addressed during the next five years. Garrido-Lowe is of the firm view that the many who mine in the Amerindian areas should be made to assist in developing the communities and bettering the lives of residents. She hopes one day that it would be normal for an Amerindian to become a writer or a lawyer or any kind of professional.
Garrido-Lowe is also very passionate about women‘s issues and while she would focus on hinterland issues it would not keep her from addressing matters which affect women. She said that women need to come together and help each other and “look after ourselves because domestic violence is not stopping…”
“We have to look at it in more than one way, not only empowering the women but educating our men; and we have to start from when they are small, which means women have more to do,” she told the Sunday Stabroek.
She feels that the values that are instilled in men as children may go a long way in determining the adults they become, and said women should view themselves as the ones who could build a nation through its human resource.
“Women need to be reminded in a sisterly and loving way that we are powerful people and we have to pick up the slack and go forth; we can’t wait on anybody to do that.”
Politics
While she was born in Moruca, Garrido-Lowe said because her father was a headmaster her family – there were nine siblings – moved quite a bit to various hinterland areas and she eventually finished her secondary schooling at St Rose‘s and later she taught for some time. She said she had various jobs as she married at a very young age, and in the end she opened her own business that specializes in graphic and design.
As a teenager she dabbled in politics as she was involved in the PNC’s youth arm – the Youth and Student Movement (YSM) – and was at one time the chairman of her community section of the YSM.
But her next stint with politics came in 1995 when she joined TUF. Ironically it was Manzoor Nadir who recruited her as a member of the party when she did some work for him on a book he had published.
She was a member of the party after that, and worked behind the scenes, but it was in 2006 she really campaigned for TUF. Since 2006 she was the one who functioned at the party headquarters and kept its doors open, as by that time the party’s leader had twice been a minister in the PPP/C government.
And it was Nadir who nominated her as the party leader and she indicated to him even before the nomination that she had her own point of view; he told her that was good.
“But you see what happened with him, he expected followers not leaders,” she said of Nadir.
After she was nominated Garrido-Lowe said that she was then questioned by those who were at the conference why she thought she would make a good leader, and it was after answering their questions that they endorsed her, even though they had no other nominee.
Garrido-Lowe and Nadir fell out when at her first press conference – with him sitting up in front – she indicated that she wanted TUF to sever the relationship with the PPP/C government because the ideology and principles of TUF would be good for Guyana. If it remained attached to the PPP/C, however, then Guyanese would not know what they stood for.
She describes her experience of being forced out of the party’s office as a frightening one, and one where she was abused as a woman verbally and almost physically. She recalled how they played musical chairs with the chair in her office, because sometimes as soon as she got up another official would take the seat, and then at one time Nadir sat in the chair and used the office.
“He was in the chair phoning and so on and then he said, ‘Ms Lowe, please for the keys,’ and I told him no. I told him if you were doing something right I would give you the keys but you are doing something wrong,” she said.
She said she sat down and waited until he got up and she again took the chair.
About the experience Garrido-Lowe admits that it “was nerve-wracking, as this went on for weeks and in the end when a thug [appeared] to get us out that was frightening.”
She recalled that the man was dressed in a vest and pants and he entered the building, kicked down a closed door and manhandled some her staff members. That was the straw which broke the camel‘s back.
“But the funny thing is I have found that when you want to be a leader publicly you can’t hide who you are, the public sees who you are.
Your inside is really outside for the public to see, so if you are a coward the public would see, if you are an opportunist the public would see, if you are a hard worker and believe in what you put out there they can see that,” she said.
Garrido-Lowe said she literally cringes to think that the public would see her as an opportunist, something that she could never be as she has simple values and only wants people to have access to education, health care and the opportunity to better their lives and live comfortably.
“That’s all I want for my fellow Guyanese,” she declared.
She said she joined the AFC along with nine others after it became abundantly clear that TUF was fractured, and they were in and out of the courts battling over the leadership of the party.
She said the AFC “was the next best party” as they are pro-capitalist and they are good people who want the best for Guyanese. She said she still believes in the principles of Peter D’Aguiar and Stephen Campbell, the founders of the original United Force.
