Leaders of APNU+ AFC parties;
Excellencies and Members of the Diplomatic Corps;
Esteemed colleagues of the media
Distinguished Civil Society representatives, ladies, youths and gentlemen:
This occasion humbles me.
Today, we are making another giant step towards national reconciliation.
Guyana objectively needs unity, and when many Guyanese saw the outcome of the talks between APNU and AFC, they responded: “It is high time!”
It is time that we give meaning to the sacrifices and struggles of our people, and of the generations living in the colony before or remaining in Guyana after Independence.
Since 1955, a single occurrence called “the split” had wounded our Guyanese civilization. It occasioned political and ethnic division. But today, today - after 60 years - we are taking a conscious step to put the healing balm to the scars of that division. Today, we hold out a new promise of addressing the legacy of ethnic insecurity in Guyana.
The restoration of electoral democracy in 1992 started a hopeful process but it did not bring healing. After a few years, it saw a new cycle of autocratic, one-party rule. The promise of 1992 faded, then became distorted in a frenzy of sleaze, corruption and complicity in criminal enterprises. The gang of betrayers derailed our democracy.
By 2011, the people of Guyana condemned the pseudo-leaders to minority status and though they tried to duck and dodge, eventually they buckled under pressure. These new, pre-mature elections, are the final, desperate refuge of a cowardly, minority clique.
Today, there is need for a new wave in our democracy, to inject life into our decaying political system, and to transform our governance by ending “winner-takes-all-politics”, by taking Guyana along the road to multi-party, multi-ethnic, national rule.
The APNU+AFC alliance is that new beginning in our quest for an inclusive democracy, not only of political parties but civil society as well.
It will be, as it has been, a bumpy road to the Promised Land. But we will not be daunted. We will not be intimidated. We shall defeat the monster of racism. We shall overcome the campaign of fear.
On March 4, 1933 – 82 years ago today – at his inauguration as the President of the United States of America, Franklin D. Rooseveldt stated famously: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
But, today, today, we have unity within our grasp. So there is nothing to fear; nothing to lose.
Today, all of our people, can embrace this fresh unity, and proudly live out our common nationality as Guyanese. In our hand is the key to unity.
Over these 54 years of my life in the political arena, I have worked for this day when a broad coalition, a Rainbow Coalition, could be possible. I have seen the contours of this coalition during 1975-1977 and again, in 1985, not its substance. Today, the APNU+AFC Team Unity have achieved not only a political union but have outlined plans and programmes for investment, growth and development of a new Guyana.
We must, going forward, give meaning to our creed as “one people, one nation, one destiny”, and like Alexander Dumas’ Three Musketeers, from now onwards, we are “one for all; and all for one”.
Today, we are seeing an alignment of brilliant stars from all of the parties that have come together. And I believe that destiny has brought us here on a single platform, with a single purpose.
I still remember the fleeting moments of meeting David Granger when we were both in short pants, in my native village Whim, and we crossed path on our way to the Auchlyne Scots school. Our lives would have taken us to different paths – his, to a career in teaching, in the police and in the military and mine, in journalism, politics and law.
But if as boys we shared a village and a school, tell me, tell me, why today can we not share in common our country, our Guyana home?
Whilst we will contest this election on issues not personalities, I have no doubt in my mind that the APNU+AFC alliance will be victorious and that David Granger will be Guyana’s next President. I have every reason to feel that as President, David will be just and fair, and that he will put Guyana first, and help restore our beloved country to the place of respect and dignity in the Caribbean and the rest of the world.
Today, as perhaps destiny would have it, our gold and green flag has blended harmoniously, like the rhythms of the tassa and steel pan, the cumfa and the nagara: the field of gold of the AFC is merged with the rich, bountiful, green natural resources of APNU.
As we prepare to take office, we note how utterly depraved this government has become by shamelessly mis-using public funds. Our children, like little Red Riding Hood, are given a modern-day glimpse of the big bad wolves with new, brighter but bigger teeth - the better to laugh at our people’s pains and miseries.
Our Alliance has said; it is enough! There will be and must be a stop to this madness! A new day must come and it will come, in the words of Martin carter, “inevitably and inexorably”.
May 11 is Deliverance Day!
Today, there is reason for hope and optimism. Everywhere, in Sri Lanka, in St. Kitts and Nevis, Team Unity has won. It is time, in the lyrics of Bob Marley, that we too can “get together and feel all right”.
Thank you.
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