The Working People’s Alliance (WPA) has defended its move to form an alliance with the main opposition party, the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), saying that the decision was premised on the party’s long-held view that Guyana can only move forward with a government that represents and is accountable to all of its peoples.
Leaders of APNU at the launch of the coalition grouping last month
In a statement, the WPA said it has noted the attacks on its co-leader Dr Rupert Roopnaraine by the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and some of its supporters, mounted on the state media since announcement of the formation of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU). The WPA said that while it is normal for opposing political parties to engage in political criticism of each other, these attacks on Dr Roopnaraine stretch the limits of civil political debate and discourse, in that apart from their bad taste, they represent the ultimate in racial scare tactics.
“The use of Walter Rodney’s memory to disparage the WPA, and Dr Roopnaraine in particular, is at best cynical. It is also hypocritical, coming from a party which repeatedly described Dr Rodney in unflattering terms while he was alive, and even after his assassination. It is the same PPP, the major beneficiary of Rodney’s struggles and sacrifice, which, after 19 years in office, has failed to conduct an inquiry into Rodney’s assassination even after the passage of a PPP parliamentary resolution that was supported by the PNC but, astonishingly, was abstained on by the PPP itself,” the WPA charged.
The WPA calls on the PPP to cease using the name of Rodney to score cheap political points. It noted that name Rodney represents the best in Guyanese and Caribbean political culture, and should be out of bounds for those who have come to represent the worst of that political culture. Stating that its decision to be part of APNU was a collective one, the WPA said it has held this position that Guyana can only move forward with a government that represents and is accountable to all the people from its birth as a pressure group in 1974.
