As elections 2025 get nearer, trust will decide the winner
Dear Editor,
It is very simple why the PPP continues to be one of the Caribbean’s winningest political parties. The people have trust in the leadership and governance of the PPP. For Elections 2025, when all is said and done, for each citizen, it will come down to them answering the simple question: who do I trust to keep their promises?
Guyana is in the proverbial last lap for Elections 2025. Next Monday is Nomination Day, when we will know how many of the 22 political parties that submitted symbols to GECOM will actually compete. In the meanwhile, the PNC/APNU launched their campaign on July 6th, and the PPP is set to launch their campaign on July 13th. While it is unclear if other parties will have a formal launch of their campaigns, we can expect many will not be able to have the traditional formal launch.
While the PPP, the incumbent governing party, continues to excite the population with popular initiatives and policies, with their transformational agenda clear for everyone to see, the opposition political parties have been proposing reckless policies and programmes. One policy that distinguishes the PPP from all political parties in Guyana for Elections 2025 is on sugar. Simply, the PPP has committed to do whatever is needed to preserve the sugar industry as a major industry. All the others want to close sugar. The sugar workers will have a big say in this election, and they will vote 100% with the PPP. As Elections 2025 get closer, expect that the opposition parties will desperately scramble to find a way to “clarify” their closure posture with wordsmithing, but they will not be able to fool sugar workers and their families anymore. Who do sugar workers trust? The answer is simple – only the PPP.
At their Elections 2025 launch, the PNC/APNU again promised $1 million to every Guyanese citizen. This would amount to more than $800 billion annually. This is far more than the $511 billion in Budget 2025 that is funded by oil money. Where will the money come from to support more infrastructural development, health, education, housing, water, etc.? Will they reintroduce the almost 300 new taxes that the PNC-led APNU/AFC did in 2015–2020, taxes the PPP Government eliminated in 2020/2021?
In Budget 2025, the allocations for critical sectors were $135.7B (Housing and Water); $252.8B (Infrastructure); $143.2B (Health); $175B (Education); $58.5B (Human Services and Social Security); $7.2B (Amerindian and Hinterland Development); $8B (Sports); $2.5B (Youth); $3.6B (Culture/Arts); and $13.2B (Sanitation and Solid Waste Management). The PNC’s proposal jeopardises all these critical areas. It is simply reckless.
While reckless, the question is who exactly believes them? The PNC’s whole history is that they took from people; they never give. For every budget in post-independence Guyana, from 1966 until 1992, when the Guyanese people, working with Cheddi Jagan and the PPP, finally had free and fair elections to remove the PNC, the PNC increased the financial burden on people by introducing new taxes, devaluing the worth of the Guyana dollar, or by freezing wages and salary increases. Between 2015 and 2020, those who had hoped that the PNC had learnt a lesson or two were disappointed when they returned to power and repeated all those same policies pre-1992. They took away cash grants, subsidies, etc. that the people had and replaced them with burdensome taxes, including VAT on water, electricity, education, etc.
The opposition led by the PNC is obsessed with tax and spend, spending on themselves. Every single time the PNC is leading the Government, the people become a source of income for a parasitic Government. So who exactly trusts them with any promise they make?
The PNC/APNU should have been ashamed to face the Guyanese people in making a promise of an income tax threshold of $400,000 per month. These are the same people who had promised in 2015 to increase the income tax threshold to $100,000 per month in their first 100 days in Government. When the first 100 days expired, the threshold was still the $50,000 per month that was there in 2014 under the PPP, not a cent more. After 5 years in Government, they shamelessly achieved an increase of $15,000 per month. The PPP in 2020 promised to double the income tax threshold, and between 2020 and 2025, the threshold increased from $65,000 to $130,000 per month. Who would the people believe will keep their income tax threshold promise, the PPP or the opposition? The PPP has earned people’s trust; others have betrayed people’s trust.
PNC/APNU promised at the launch an immediate increase in old-age pension to $100,000 per month. The audacity of these people knows no bounds. They had promised in 2015 that they would double old-age pensions in the first 100 days. They abandoned that promise, and the old-age pension increased from $15,000 per month to $20,500 in five years, while taking away subsidies for water and electricity from the same pensioners. The PPP promised in 2020 to double the old-age pension in their term of office. Between 2020 and 2025, old-age pensions increased from $20,500 to $41,000 per month while restoring all subsidies and providing periodic cash grants. Who would people believe, whose promises are more trusted? The answer is clear – the PPP.
At the launch, the PNC promised a 35% annual increase in salaries for public servants. They had promised in 2015 a 20% annual increase in salaries and benefits for public servants. On assuming office in 2015, the PNC-led Government gave themselves – president, prime Minister and Ministers – a 50% to 100% increase in their salaries and benefits but abandoned their 20% promise to public servants. In fact, salaries increased only 35% over the entire five years. They betrayed the public servants, and now they come with an even bigger promise.
At the launch, they promised a bigger and better cash grant for children. This is a PPP initiative that they criticised in 2014, terminated in 2015 and criticised again when the PPP reintroduced it in 2020. The PPP kept its promise of reintroducing this popular initiative and increased it to $55,000 per child. President Irfaan Ali has consistently stated that this programme will continue to grow. For Elections 2025, the PNC now has endorsed the programme, promising to make it bigger and better. Does anyone believe them?
By now, the Guyanese people, including many staunch PNC supporters, know that for the PNC, promises are made to be broken. The vast majority of Guyanese people have come to recognise and acknowledge that for the PPP, promises are sacred and they must be fulfilled. In politics, TRUST is important. Who do the people trust? Elections 2025 will establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that the people’s TRUST is in President Irfaan Ali and the PPP.
