Guyanese professionals living and working in Trinidad and Tobago have welcomed the coalition of A Partnership of National Unity and the Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) assuming office after defeating the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) in Guyana’s May 11 general and regional elections.

The PPP/C had been in office for 23 years in succession. 

Walter Alexander, an educator, who made a 12-hour trip to Guyana on May 10 to vote told Newsday, “We did it. We did it!” mistaking this reporter’s voice for someone else when telephoned. 

“I was in Guyana for 12 hours to cast my ballot. I voted and left. When votes were counted, mine had to be counted. That was how important it was for me to see a change in government,” he said. 

Alexander, a former University of Guyana lecturer and researcher, said he left his home country because of “how bad corruption and nepotism were” and how “racism and victimisation” affected him personally. He will return to Guyana to work, he said, “but not immediately. That is in the pipeline. Now that there has been a change in government, I want to do the proverbial giving back to build my country.” 

Joel Gonsalves, an educator, said he was “extremely happy” that “Guyana has shown that it can unite to bring about change.” 

Gonsalves left Guyana in 2007, six years after his sister Donna McKinnon was shot dead on April 9, 2001, his birthday, during an elections’ protest outside of Freedom House, the PPP/C headquarters on Robb Street, Georgetown. 

At the time, the popular Metropole Cinema was burning down, believed to be on account of arson. “The case was inconclusive because of lack of evidence. The bullets were not analysed. There were many missing pieces of information,” he said. 

Following the media attention given to the case, Gonsalves said he experienced a lot of racial prejudice at his workplace and “couldn’t stick around anymore. I will be happy if the government could reopen the case, so that my family could get some closure. We are still asking questions.” 

Asked if he was willing to return to Guyana, he said, “there is no place like home.” 

Paul Cort, 37, a lecturer in music and voice at the University of the Southern Caribbean said he left “because there was no opportunity to study music at the level I wanted to, and due to the lack of scholarships and job opportunities in the area of music.” 

He left also, he said, because of the demographics of Guyana’s population and the ethnic voting pattern. “I felt it would have been impossible for the PPP/C to be removed from government, and I did not believe that the opposition had the ability to unseat them,” he said. 

On returning to Guyana in 2005 with a degree in music and voice, Cort said he offered his services to the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Culture and the teachers training college, but to no avail. 

“So I went to the prime minister (Sam Hinds), whom I knew and figured could help me. In short he told me that what I was interested in, the government was not interested in at the time. He advised me to seek a job in the wider Caribbean where I could be better paid.” Frustrated, Cort said he left in 2006 and made a pledge not to return as long as the PPP/C remained in power. 

Cort who now lives with his wife and family in St Joseph said, “I am not prepared to jump ship and go home.” 

Maria Hutson, 63, a housekeeper in Federation Park, who has supported the PPP/C for many years said she was sad when she heard the party had lost the elections. It was under the PPP/C that she got a house lot in “C” Field, Sophia, where supporters of the coalition APNU+AFC set ablaze eight vehicles, a shack and a horse stable after polling ended on May 11. She condemned the violence. 

Asked why she left Guyana for TT, Hutson said after one of her sons, a police officer died, she could not get his gratuities. “The NIS (National Insurance Scheme) told me to find a job. They said I was not of age to get his benefits. I was working at part time jobs and could not make ends meet. Then I was offered this job in Trinidad, which has put me on the road to building my own house. I could not have done that had I been in Guyana.” 

Hutson has all reasons to return to Guyana, but not because of the change in government, but because of her family. 

Roxanne Adrain, 29 of Mount Lambert said she was ecstatic about the APNU+AFC victory. Her generation, she said, never experienced a government under another administration. 

“When that victory came, it was so emotional. I literally cried,” she said. 

Adrian, who has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in international relations said in Guyana she could not get a job commensurate with her qualifications. 

“The people who were paid were contract workers and to get a contract job, you had know somebody in government, or you had to be a member of the party in government.” 

She will return, she said, when the time comes to work, particularly, among Guyanese of Amerindian origin.