FOR when polling day dawned on October 5, 1992, it was apparent to most observers that the people were going to vote the PNC out of office: the PPP/C, despite all the padding of the voters lists over the years, postal voting, proxy voting, persons voting several times, impersonation, the many illegalities and irregularities that, preceded the election, would win the election and be able to form the next Guyana government.
But sensing defeat the PNC, it now seemed, had a fallback plan of seizing power through insurrectionary means by storming all the election buildings throughout the country. The PNC had wanted to create a crisis by flooding the streets and polling stations with protesters, and waging an insurrection that did not materialize; hence they resort to political terrorism. Public terror started against the business community in the urban and rural areas.
The invasion of polling stations, government offices, bomb threats, and discovery of bombs to make hoaxes real, were part of the public terror campaign. The urban and rural areas were gripped in fear and later exploded in violence. Many PPP/C supporters were targeted, and beaten; one man was shot in his leg in Cotton Field, Essequibo Coast.
President Dr Cheddi Jagan stated that our major groups have more in common and more that unite than divide them. He implemented a Race Relations Board, an equal opportunity law, and employment practice and Affirmative Action as in the United States.
After the October 5, 1992, incident, where the people were subjected to a daylight terrorism attack, he realized that rough times are ahead with the PNC as an opposition party; dialogue and constitutional engineering would not create a new shift in the balance of forces.