Fellow Guyanese,
For too long, our people have been held hostage by the chains of injustice, corruption, and exclusionary politics. For over two decades, the PPP/C regime has ruled this nation, and in the last five years, they were handed the golden key – massive oil revenues capable of transforming every life, every village, every family. And what have they done?
They have gorged themselves at the table of our national wealth, while the rest of us are left to beg for crumbs. They have turned our democracy into an authoritarian machine that silences dissent, divides our people, and entrenches systemic discrimination. They play on race and fear, using division as a weapon. But we will not be divided. Not now. Not again.
We must remember our National Hero, Cuffy – not just as a symbol of the past, but as a living reminder of what collective resistance and moral clarity can achieve. Cuffy, a man of African descent, rose up in 1763 and led a rebellion of enslaved people against the brutal plantation regime in Berbice. He stood not for self, but for freedom, justice, and human dignity.
Cuffy’s uprising was not just against the slave masters of his day, but against the very idea that any people should live in servitude, whether by whips or by policy. He proved that when a people awaken to their power, no system – no matter how entrenched – can hold.
And as Walter Rodney, our own son of the soil, boldly reminded us:
“Any serious analysis of society must be rooted in history. The people must understand their past in order to determine their future.”
The time for passivity is over. The time for excuses is over. Today, you hold the power – the might to remove a regime that has forgotten the faces of the people who elected them. Vote them out.
We must reject the authoritarianism, the racial exclusion, the injustice, the unfair distribution of wealth, and the blatant neglect of the poor and working class. Oil money flows like rivers through our land, yet poverty still chokes the throats of ordinary Guyanese from Linden to Leguan, Bartica to Berbice.
We need leadership with vision, integrity, and courage – leadership that listens to all Guyanese, regardless of race, class, or creed. We need leaders who carry the torch of justice and unity with unflinching resolve.
Let us channel the fire of Cuffy. Let us rise, shoulder to shoulder, not in anger alone, but in purpose, in awareness, and with unshakable will. Let us uproot the systems that feed on division and build a Guyana where every citizen can thrive.
This is your moment. This is your country. This is your vote.
Use it. Rise up. Resist. Reclaim Guyana.
Roysdale Forde, S.C
Former Member of Parliament (APNU)
