Television broadcaster and Leader of the Justice For All Party, Chandra Narine Sharma, has rejected offers by the political opposition to form an alliance to contest this year’s general and regional elections. He has formally announced his own bid to become president of Guyana.
While speaking with Guyana Times International, Sharma disclosed that he has been hosting several meetings and discussions with his party members, but has yet not gotten any substantive information from the Guyana Elections Commission. He argued that there is need for more information to be available to the smaller parties with respect to elections’ matters. “I am waiting to hear from GECOM. So far, as well, I have not heard anything about an elections date. When that announcement is made we will be ready to compete”, Sharma informed.
He said that the Justice for All Party was also expected to announce its elections’ manifesto in a matter of three weeks. This manifesto will include solutions to all of the issues affecting Guyana’s poor and vulnerable over the years. The allegedly high Value Added Tax, the high cost of living, poor wages and working conditions, and the need for a more robust approach to address the “problems facing the sugar and bauxite industries” are all to be addressed in the JFAP manifesto.
Sharma explained that it is time for there to be change in Guyana, and it is necessary now for all Guyanese to recognize this. He urged Guyanese not to vote on the basis of ‘ethnicity or race,’ but rather to look condignly at issues and the problems which they face. “They gat to stop voting race and start voting pon issues, because that is the only way there will be change”, Sharma advised this publication.
Sharma does not plan to go out in the fields and campaign intensively because of his frail health, but he surely intends to meet with his party supporters on a daily basis at the JFAP Wellington Street offices. When questioned about the other top executives of the party who will be campaigning with the Voice of the People host, Sharma said that “two of them recently died”, but his party is expected “to select replacements ahead of the 2011 polls”. The two party members who died are Clem David and Sherwood Kendall. Each of these men had campaigned with Sharma as his prime ministerial candidate at respective times during the last three elections.
Coalition
Questioned on whether the Justice For All Party would partly constitute the Joint Opposition Political Parties, Sharma stated categorically that he does not “believe in coalitions”. He even went further to say that while discussions have been held by the AFC and the PNCR with his party, he does not believe that coalitions will make a huge difference in Guyana’s political landscape.
Sexual allegations
Declaring himself “Champion of Guyana’s poor”, Sharma said he is ready to become Guyana’s president, and will be looking this year to make that goal a reality, regardless of the many “injustices” that have been meted out to him. Asked how he perceives the sexual molestion allegations affecting the Guyanese people’s perception of him, Sharma said he believes Guyanese people will still have confidence in him. He also dismissed the allegations against him as ‘false’, and said that his track record as ‘a Champion of the Poor’ speaks for itself.
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