FOR those who think they can frighten us, let me state unequivocally,we are not intimidated. Let me also clarify, the PPP/C has been in the forefront of creating a shared governance model and if everyone embraces the model with the same commitment, it will represent a shared governance model that truly provides space for all stakeholders in our country. I concede that the government can do more to make the model more effective, but the opposition have shown little commitment to support shared governance.
As a boy, in the 1960s, I remember how we were traumatized as the PNC tried to force a legitimate government from power. Then they hatched up an X-13 plan to make Guyana ungovernable, under the pretext of stopping communism. But it was heinously an exercise to grab power. We all know what happened after that. Guyanese were denied their freedom for almost three decades. By the time we succeeded in 1992 in  removing the PNC dictatorship, Guyana was not only the poorest country in the Caribbean, we were also among the most indebted in the world. The economy was totally shattered. A government that promised to ‘house, clothe and feed” the citizens of Guyana, left Guyanese homeless, no water, little electricity, roads and schools and hospitals broken down, left us hungry and we depended on our families abroad for barrels of used clothing.
Even as we bravely and proudly and without malice began to reconstruct and recreate our country post 1992, lifting it out of the abyss of suffering and shame, out of dictatorship, building a free society, erasing the debt and modernizing our country, removing the shameful morass of the social decline of our society, the PNC and their band of hate-mongering, power-hungry zealots tried to stop us through strategies to make Guyana ungovernable. Remember the “slo fire, mo fire” campaign of the PNC as they promised to make Guyana “ungovernable” in the 1990s and early 2000s? Remember the so called “freedom fighters”, promoted by people like Ogunseye in the aftermath of the 2002 jailbreak, as they brought terror and death to our doors, as they slaughtered our children, our brothers and sisters in communities across Guyana, like Lusignan and Bartica? But each time, the Guyanese people, in no uncertain manner, rejected these efforts to make Guyana ungovernable.
Now Ogunseye has issued a new call to make Guyana ungovernable unless he gets his notion of shared governance. The fiendish intent is to intimidate and terrorize Guyanese. Ogunseye’s ominous intent is exposed. He threatened to make Guyana ungovernable, but also promoted a racial basis, introducing the “kith and kin” argument. Ogunseye and his friends’ justification of his “riot call” is reprehensible, reprehensible enough for ACDA, the PNC/R and the AFC to distance themselves.
Ogunseye clearly articulated a position: if elections within a democratic system will not give him and his small group of power-hungry zealots what they want (having or sharing power), then they are prepared to use any means, nefarious or otherwise, to forcefully overturn the election results. In even more direct words, Ogunseye and his apologists, like Sherwood Lowe and others, have issued a most fiendish warning: either elections give us power or we take it by force.
First, Ogunseye and others evidently have rejected any place for free and fair elections as the basis of democratic governance. Ogunseye believes, like Burnham and the PNC before believed,that you must impose yourself on the population to get what you want. It is this kind of reasoning that motivated people like Ogunseye to call criminals and bandits who laid siege to Buxton a few years ago, freedom fighters. These are people who are so scared of the possibility of peacefully asking the Guyanese people to vote for them and their ideas that they have chosen to warn the people either they vote for candidates of Ogunseye’s choice or it will be mayhem on the streets and in our communities.
Second, Ogunseye and his friends have the temerity and the audacity to presume they speak for African Guyanese and to use this brazen presumption to issue a threat to the democratically elected Government and to the Guyanese people. But just as strongly, the voices of the Guyanese people will resound with an unequivocal rejection of Ogunseye and his small group of unpatriotic friends, not in belligerent display of “riot”, but in quiet and unequivocal rejection in the 2011 General Elections.
Third, Ogunseye must realise that no single group in Guyana is dominant over the others. In Guyana all citizens have equal rights and have the opportunities to develop their families and their communities. The truth is that the health system, education system, housing and water programmes, the social justice agenda in our country are designed to benefit every Guyanese. The Government of Guyana concedes that we still have much work to accomplish so that every Guyanese and every community can benefit to the fullest extent. The truth is that even with great accomplishments, our programmes, within the resources at our disposal, have not eliminated all poverty in our country. It is the reason the Government of Guyana has developed social programmes to ensure no Guyanese is left behind.
Since 1992, Guyana has reduced poverty from between 66 and 88% to less than 35%. The reduction of poverty has been across the board, allowing people of all ethnic groups to lift themselves out of poverty. There are still too many Guyanese who live lives of poverty, but these include people of African-Guyanese origin, Indo-Guyanese origin, Amerindian Guyanese and others. But in the warped world of Ogunseye and his wicked clique, only poverty in one group of Guyanese counts. Guyanese reject this absurd notion. How can these people seriously talk about discrimination and marginalisation when the civil service, the police force, the army and many other areas continue to be dominated by African Guyanese, even almost 20 years after the emergence of democracy in Guyana? And Ogunseye cannot seriously think he can convince anyone, other than his hate-mongering friends, that only one group of Guyanese has benefited from programmes to own their own homes or to be able to benefit from potable water or from pension for the elderly or from the thousands of better paying jobs created since 1992!
And I ask this question: Can Ogunseye really tell me that the approximately 2,300 babies under five years old we have been saving every year for more than a decade only belong to one ethnic group? Recall that in the 1985 to 1990 period, more than 2,500 babies under five years old used to die each year compared to just over 200 per year now. I further ask: Can Ogunseye tell me from which group were mainly the 60 to 70 women who used to die in child birth every year in the 1985 to 1990 period? And can he seriously claim that the 50 to 60 women who are now saved because we have reduced these deaths are from only one group? The Guyana Government must do even better to reduce these numbers, but saving of our children and our mothers is across the board and not only in one group.
But I move to the 4th point I want to make: Do Ogunseye and his hate-promoting band recognise that no political party can win an election today based on ethnic votes? The truth is that the PPP/C is the only political party which does not appeal to and does not subscribe to racist politics and policies; it wins elections because it is able to get votes from the Guyanese people and not from one ethnic group. We do not concede any community to another political party. We reject the “kith and kin” polarizing approach of Ogunseye and others.  The PPP/C as the governing party pursues a developmental path in every region and every community, regardless of the ethnic make-up. In the coming election we will continue to respect the intelligence and the voice of the people. We will listen to them and we will present our track record and our programmes for the future. We will ask them to support us, yet we will respect their wishes. But the Guyanese people know and we continue to assure them that we will never disrespect them by imposing ourselves on them. Our political opponents know that we never selected any candidate for Presidency unless such a candidate subscribes to the right of every Guyanese to benefit equally. And they should know that the PPP/C will continue to work in the belief that our record in Government and in representing people, wherever they live, means we will work for their votes in every nook and cranny of our country, not on the basis of their race, but as our Guyanese sisters and brothers.
Ogunseye and the PNCR have the arrogance to believe they own people in certain parts of the country and they base such misguided arrogance on the “kith and kin” approach. But no one owns the people of Linden. No one owns the people of Buxton. Indeed, no one owns the people anywhere in Guyana. That is the fundamental difference between the PPP/C and other political parties. It is a fundamental principle we live with – the people own us, not we own the people.
And because this is our make-up,  we do not think we should work harder in Port Mourant than we must work in Linden and we do not approach any community as if we do not have a chance to win anywhere in Guyana. We do accept that in any democracy, no government can ever hope to win in every community and to win every vote. But we expect to do well everywhere. It is this mindset that permits us to believe it is possible to obtain significant number of votes in Buxton or anywhere else. We work to earn the votes of those who voted for us in the past and we work to ensure those who voted against us before will want to vote for us this time. But we want people to be confident that our Government will work for all Guyanese, regardless of who they voted for and “kith and kin” has no place.
Fiendish and frightening as the words and the intent of Ogunseye were, we are not cowered and we will not hide. Rather we, the Guyanese people, will confidently and overwhelmingly reject Ogunseye and walk the path of freedom, democracy and justice for all.