Jagdeo debunks ‘racist’ label

…says guilty Opposition looking for scapegoat
Former President and Executive Member of the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) Bharrat Jagdeo has denounced

Former President Bharrat Jagdeo

claims that the incumbent party practiced racism and was selective in its policies and programme for the ethnic groupings in the country.
Speaking on Television Guyana’s (TVG) Channel 28 programme, “Under the Microscope” on Thursday evening, Jagdeo told host, Michael Younge that he nor the party practiced racism and will never practice such.
He explained that while the Opposition likes to harp that he was a racist, the policies and programmes implemented under his government and the current government can prove that the incumbent has never neglected any one ethnic group or race while contrasting this with the former People’s National Congress (PNC) government which he said, never respected Afro Guyanese, even though it had claimed to; noting that every Guyanese should revisit the past to see that this was not simply hearsay but rather the true history of the country. “I would ask every Guyanese to ask their parents and grandparents about the period pre 1992. How many Afro Guyanese were given a piece of land? Today over 50,000 Afro Guyanese own a piece of land that they didn’t own when the PNC was in office…”

Ever race respected
Jagdeo said that it was under the ruling party that the rights of Afro Guyanese, Indo Guyanese and every other race was respected and catered for. “We can say today, public servants’ salaries have grown tremendously, we’ve restored respect to the public service. Today you have more Afro Guyanese owned businesses that at any other time in our history. We have more Afro Guyanese who own vehicles apart from land, more employed. We have changed the lives of many people, not just Afro Guyanese, but Indo Guyanese, Amerindians…,” the former president said.
The PPP Executive Member noted that the only reason he is being called racist was simply because the Opposition wanted to shine the limelight away from their lack of policies and programmes in their 2015 Elections Manifesto.  According to him, it was their plan to polarise the country, in an effort to win the elections, to be held on Monday, May 11.

Poor track record
“…Mr. Granger has a poor track record and all of Guyana knows this whether you’re Afro Guyanese or Indo Guyanese or any other race… they cannot compete on their track record…if you cannot contest the elections on your track record, then you cannot contest the elections on your future because your plans are mediocre according to their Manifesto, so what do you do? You polarize the country along the racial lines as the only campaign tool to get their votes… and hope that you can win the elections…they have an interest in polarizing the country,” Jagdeo expressed.
Revisiting comments which he had made at Babu Jaan, Port Mourant, Berbice in March at the commemoration of the death of former President and founding leader of the PPP, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, Jagdeo alluded that the Opposition and members of society have taken his comments in the wrong context and it was never intended to paint him as a racist or the party as guilty of practicing racism.
At the event Jagdeo had accused the Opposition of racism. “They did it in South Ruimveldt. I hope this doesn’t happen in these elections because they did the last elections. We know racism exists, we know they use that language to campaign but if we use it we are exacerbating it? “You should really go after the people who used it in a derogatory way, not me who is trying to fight this… Now when I want to fight that you are saying it’s some evidence of some divisiveness…
Jagdeo had said that the “mere fact we are talking about it here today gives hope that everybody will be vigilant on the campaign, that we don’t use that language. And you as well as I will keep our ears open also for the whisper campaign… From the last election to now I can bring maybe five persons who can say we have heard this in our homes or heard that, the drum beating people walking to their homes and saying and shouting this.” He further stated that anyone caught practicing racism in the party will be kicked out. The former President said that the statement was not meant to be racially divisive in any way but was rather an act of condemnation of racism in Guyana especially on the political platform.  “It is like someone using the ‘n’ word in the United States and the people who say let’s condemn racism, they are now getting accused of being racist.”
He declared that his track record was clean and can speak for himself, noting that the PPP has never practiced race politics and will never do such. “The day the PPP becomes an ethnic party, I, Bharrat Jagdeo will not be a part of that party,” he declared.