To join… or split (the vote)? 

“Don’ split the vote” is a phrase that entered our political lexicon from the beginning of our tryst with democracy!! Seeing that the early proto-parties – like the League of Coloured Peoples (LCP) and the BG East Indian Association (BGEIA) – which preceded universal suffrage catered overtly to racial/sectional interests, that wasn’t surprising. Folks were expected to vote for the party that spoke up for their specific section – and happily did so!! It made sense to NOT split the votes!!
But such sectional voting didn’t find favour with the young lions who launched what they dubbed the “new politics”, where “all awee ah waan” – as “Guianese” in the promised land on a new socialist world they’d usher in!! But the people stubbornly stuck to voting along racial lines – which the leaders pretended wasn’t so!!And always derided negatively by them – even as they benefited from it!! One early Indian leader from a proto-party used the Hindi phrase “Aapan Jaat” – meaning “Your Own” – to send their message in a coded manner. Later the PNC attributed the phrase to Dr Jagan’s PPP – whose base was Indian – to his great chagrin since he’d even defied the US to declare he was communist and so HAD to see “all awee ah waan”!!
Well, in this election campaign we can gauge the status of racial voting by checking the usage of the “Don’t split the vote” call!! Aubrey Norton’s PNC has chosen to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds!! He’s calling for votes from all racial groups in the country – while following the advice of his WPA hound to advise African Guyanese NOT to split their votes!! Obviously feeling that desperate times call for desperate measures, he doesn’t seem to care that it makes him sound – and look – schizophrenic!!
The AFC just exhibited another galvanic twitch – in their drawn-out death throes – to make a feeble call in African-dominated Reg 10 to “split the vote” and give them some!! Not depending on the (faded) glory of their leader, they’re promising an “international airport”!! Sure – for when pigs get wings!! This, however, ain’t causing Norton’s schizophrenia – that’s due to PPP’s success after five years of “multiracial” inclusive development – and interestingly also to Sanction Man’s WIN.
While the PPP has hived off Afro-Guyanese who’re willing to put their shoulder to the (developmental) wheel, WIN has pulled away the Scrapeheads. They’ve done this through doling out payoffs from their ill-gotten gains – using Scrapes such as the aptly named “Doggie” and “Fatta”!!
So, with the (broken) PNC the only party preaching “don’t split the vote” – half-heartedly – it looks like these elections might sound the death-knell of “Aapan Jaat”!!
Good riddance!!

…a Bridge
Back on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the surface of the Moon, and his words, “One small step for man; one giant step for mankind” – still reverberate!! Why?? Because it set a new benchmark for achievement after more than a hundred years of the progress wrought by the Industrial Revolution!! Well, for us in Guyana, after twenty-eight years of the PPP struggling to lift Guyana out of the hole into which the PNC had plunged it – during THEIR twenty-eight plus five years – the completion of the new fixed-span suspension DHB might be a small step for the developed countries but represents one GIANT step for all Guyanese!!
Hey!! Just LOOKING at the structure – especially with it floating majestically over our bruised and battered WWII-era pontoon bridge – doesn’t it just make your heart swell with pride?? Whether we like it or not, it signals FIRST WORLD!!
Especially with the First World community of hotels, gated communities, stadiums, malls and even a medical school!!

…Granpa Carter’s legacy
President Carter returned democracy to Guyana in 1992 and helped maintain our credentials since – by acting as election observers. His grandson Jason was refused reentry by PNC during their 2020 rigging heist.
But he’s baaaack!!