PPP/C progress, vision drawing Afro-Guyanese support – James Bond

…as Opposition targets Afro-Guyanese for not supporting their race

Prominent Attorney and businessman James Bond has credited the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) with earning the growing support of Afro-Guyanese citizens, pointing to the Government’s developmental track record as the main driver of shifting allegiances.

Speaking in a recent public statement that has gained national attention, Bond emphasised that many Afro-Guyanese, himself included, have been able to successfully build businesses under the PPP/C Administration, dismissing claims that the Party is exclusionary or only supports specific ethnic or political groups.
“To paint this picture as if Afro-Guyanese are just digging drains and doing roads is so far removed from reality,” Bond said. “I started my bar with $400,000. I wasn’t a PPP member. I didn’t join the PPP. But under this government, I’ve started multiple successful businesses.”
Bond made it clear that his support was not driven by Party affiliation, but by visible and tangible national progress.
“What attracted me to the PPP/C wasn’t politics – it was progress. It was vision. Something that others clearly lack,” Bond stated, directing criticism at Vincent Alexander, a political commentator and Opposition-aligned academic.
Back in January, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo categorically rejected any allegations suggesting that he made promises to Bond in return for his endorsement of President Dr Irfaan Ali’s second-term bid, following Bond’s defection from the Opposition People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) to the PPP/C.
During one of his weekly press conferences, Jagdeo stated that Bond’s decision to support the PPP/C was a voluntary one, based on his personal assessment of what was best for his future.
“Nothing was promised to James Bond, no pecuniary benefits, nothing that he will get a contract if he comes to the PPP. He voluntarily decided, and I suspect it’s a well-thought-out decision about his own future, decided he wants to support Irfaan Ali and the People’s Progressive Party and their agenda. This is something that we welcome. Lots of people will do that, but he was never promised anything to come to the PPP,” he said.
Further, Jagdeo responded to mounting criticism surrounding Bond’s switch, particularly from those who disparaged him as a “house slave” or a “slave catcher”. These insults, Jagdeo said, were unfounded and failed to recognise that Bond, like many others, was simply making an informed choice about his political future.
On this point, the VP noted that such attacks only strengthened the resolve of the PPP and reaffirmed its welcoming stance to those who align with its vision of progress and freedom.
“The vilest thing said about people because they choose in their own lives to, at some point in time, make an assessment as to what is good for them themselves… People are jumping ship in large numbers, because they don’t want to go down in a sinking racist ship that PNC and APNU [A Partnership for National Unity] are in,” the Vice President told media operatives.
On Monday, representative of the Association of People of African Descent in Guyana (APAD), Elisha Ali spoke at the United Nations (UN) Permanent Forum on People of African Descent in New York about the continued silencing of Afro-Guyanese by those referring to them as “lick bottom” and “slave catchers”. He made this statement during the 4th Session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, themed “United for Reparatory Justice in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI).”
Ali told the Forum that such language has been particularly directed at Guyanese of African descent by representatives of the PNC, APNU, and the Alliance For Change (AFC), with David Hinds of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) being one of the most recent figures to use the derogatory term “lick bottom Africans” in reference to Afro-Guyanese.

He noted that “as we reflect on our shared history, we are also presented with a unique opportunity to shape a future where technology works for us and not against us. But we must also recognise that some of our greatest challenges are not only external. They arise within our own communities. Today, I wish to offer a crucial recommendation to this forum. We must establish clear measures and checks and balances to prevent African organisations, particularly those representing people of African descent, from attacking or undermining fellow groups within our communities”.
Too often, he said, it is found that organisations created to advocate for rights and advancement of Afro-descendant communities become the very entities that foster division. “In Guyana, for instance, we have witnessed organisations intended to combat institutional racism that have instead perpetuated harm by silencing descendant voices within our community and disparaging other Afro-Guyanese who express their right to independent thought. They have resulted in calling those who do not share their personal ideologies lick bottoms, slave catchers, and house slaves,” he told the UN Forum.
He pointed out that this divisiveness undermines the collective efforts towards reparatory justice. “The struggle for equality and recognition should not be derailed by internal strife, nor should it be hijacked by gatekeepers who decide who is authentically black or who has the right to speak for our people. It is essential that organisations, both governmental and non-governmental, be held accountable for creating spaces that foster unity and collaboration rather than fracture and exclusion.”
He recommended that the Permanent Forum establish accountability mechanisms to enforce checks and balances and ensure that reparatory justice addresses both external and internal oppression. “The fight for justice must be rooted in unity. Let us hold ourselves at the same standards that we demand the world,” he said.