Election 2025 is around the corner. Political parties are gearing up to start the election campaign in earnest. While President Irfaan Ali and the VP, the General Secretary of the PPP, are busy talking about development and plans to move Guyana and transform Guyana, the Opposition are still talking about bringing back failed policies and issuing threats. While the AFC are talking about failed policies they led in the APNU/AFC’s disastrous term between 2015 and 2020, the PNC have now decided that Afro-Guyanese need to develop a vision of what they want to be. While President Ali and VP Bharrat Jagdeo are harnessing the people in every community to work as ONE GUYANA, to transform our country with no ceiling to our dreams, our dreams as Guyanese people, not looking to have one ethnic group favoured over another, the Opposition parties keep looking for ways to divide our country.
The PNC leader this week directly identified his party as a party committed to Afro-Guyanese. The AFC launched what they called a “reinvigoration” campaign in Linden, where they said they were coming to their people. The WPA went deep into its geriatric pool to find new leaders to head their campaign. They could not even find enough people to form an executive. In the meanwhile, the PPP have major support in every region, in every sub-region, and in every ethnic group in the country.
This week, as Amerindian leaders from more than 242 villages gather in Georgetown for the National Toshaos Conference, President Irfaan Ali announced that Amerindians would be entitled to 26.5% of the carbon credit revenues in 2024. Last year, Amerindians were guaranteed that they would receive a minimum of 15% of all carbon credit revenues. Because the 2023 revenue of US$150M was larger than the expected 2024 revenue of about $88M, President Ali announced that the actual amount received by Amerindian villages would not be less than they received in 2023. He therefore announced that, in order to ensure the 2024 actual amount surpasses the 2023 amount (US$22.5M), Amerindian communities would be allocated a total of 26.5% of total carbon credit revenue for 2024. Thus, the explicit policy has been established for Amerindians that the 2023 amount of US$22.5M is the floor.
The backdrop of this is that a few dozen Amerindian people received an empty bag, and another few received an umbrella from the AFC leader as he travelled to meet Amerindian citizens. The symbolism is stark for Guyanese to see. The Opposition have no vision, are clueless, and cannot visualize what a united country looks like. There is no need to look too deeply, the Opposition is desperate. They have therefore not hesitated to begin doing what they do best – spread fear and anxiety among people.
This week, leaders of the Alliance for Change (AFC) made remarks that, unless GECOM give in to their demands, the 2025 elections could lead to public unrest and violence. For those of us who have experienced election unrest in Guyana, we know that this is a direct threat coming from leaders who were engaged in election skullduggery in 2020. For five long months, the PNC-led APNU/AFC, in a conspiracy with GECOM staff, tried to rig the results of the March 2020 elections in plain sight. As Election 2025 approaches, those who were part of shameless election-theft efforts brazenly make their intentions clear. The old “slo’ fyah, mo’ fyah” campaign is being touted as their election strategy to counter the push of President Ali and GS Jagdeo to transform Guyana into a developed country. The threats come at a time when a number of persons who are criminally charged for the failed attempts to thief the March 2020 elections are in the middle of their trials. These trials have been delayed for four years, and the defence lawyers are doing their utmost to create more delays. Presently, the trials are in another hiatus because the magistrate is now on sick leave.
In the March 2020 elections, after they failed to rig the elections’ results by brazenly changing the numbers, they made up the fake story that dead people voted in the elections, and these dead people, phantom votes, caused the PPP to win. They claimed that thousands of dead people voted in the elections, but they could not produce evidence for even a single dead person who voted. These are the same people who could not produce their copies of the statements of poll, even today.
While the PPP announced that another amount of more than $4B would be circulated in Indigenous People’s communities, the announcement also was made of the reinstitution of the electricity subsidy for pensioners. Every day in our country, the Government looks for ways of helping people, giving more services, etc. Every day in our country, the Opposition talks about taking away freedom, taking away entitlements.
While Amerindian leaders are meeting in Georgetown, and while they are preparing for Amerindian Heritage Month, they are reminded that while the PPP government continues to lift up their living standards, the Opposition stands ready to take away their gains. The more the Opposition talks about protest and street violence, the more they are reminded that these very people took away the jobs of more than 2,000 CSOs.
While the PPP keeps updating its strategy to transform and build world-class infrastructure, the Opposition’s strategy is to fall back on old, failed, disastrous policies. Election 2025 presents Guyana with an opportunity to end division, to understand that our people can become prosperous by uniting under the banner of ONE GUYANA. While some talk about a vision for one ethnic group, President Ali speaks about a vision of ONE GUYANA, where every ethnic group shines.