APNU prime ministerial candidate Dr Rupert Roopnaraine last evening told residents of Plaisance that a recently conducted poll has indicated heartening results for the opposition coalition at the November 28 elections.
Addressing several hundreds at the Plaisance Embankment Road, Roopnaraine said that a recent scientific poll that was done indicated “that there is a lot to take comfort in.” However, he urged the crowd not to take this for granted and to come out on Election Day. Without going into any specifics about the poll, he emphasized that it was not like the NACTA polls conducted by Vishnu Bisram.
Roopnaraine urged APNU supporters not to disrupt the meetings of the PPP/C saying that this was playing into the strategy of the ruling party and called on them to “reject” the government by voting them out. Saying that “Guyanese are in the plight of the Jagdeo blight,” he said the people were just days away from coming out of the “ruin, devastation and sadness” that characterized Jagdeo’s presidency. “For the next week wear something green. Let us create a green week throughout Guyana,” he urged.
Roopnaraine also appealed to members of the Disciplined Forces to vote for APNU as they prepare to vote tomorrow.
Earlier in the evening, he had said that the PPP/C is engaged in “Campaign Body Snatch – they snatching bodies from all over Guyana to take to their rallies.”
Roopnaraine said: “The PPP/C will try to steal the elections from the APNU.
It is my view that they are making careful preparations to steal the elections of November 28,” he said, but APNU will have polling agents at all polling stations across the country who will be paying keen attention. “We want their eyes wide open right until the end,” he said. “We gon watch dem,” he told a cheering crowd.
PNCR Leader Robert Corbin, who was warmly welcomed by the crowd, called on the Plaisance to reject the PPP/C on November 28 saying that the government had insulted them by refusing to give them flood relief following the 2005 Great Flood and more recently by constructing ‘Pradoville 2’.
“Vote against the insult of Jagdeo coming to build a place in Plaisance while ya’ll got holes on the back road,” he said.
He also chided the government for constructing a special water main to service residents of ‘Pradoville 2’ while other neighbouring communities are receiving an inadequate water supply. He described the construction of the housing scheme in the neighbouring village of Sparendaam as a “great insult” to all the residents of Plaisance and their ancestors.
Corbin also criticized the president’s pension, during his hour-long address, saying that the government had ensured that he would receive a pension of $3 million per month while the government never confirmed Genevieve Whyte-Nedd as chief education officer robbing her of the benefits she should be entitled to.
This, he said, shows the discriminatory nature of the government. He also pointed the fact that the President would receive such a large pension even before he had reached 50 and noted that previously the opposition had to battle for the government to give Mrs Joyce Hoyte the pension that was due to her. He said even former president Arthur Chung only got his pension at a very late stage in his life.
Meanwhile Ronald Bulkan promised that APNU will place the most suitable persons to fill positions in government. “No longer will persons be chosen on party loyalty and political connections,” he said. “An APNU-led government will signal the end of placing square pegs in round holes,” he said.
Bulkan hailed Corbin’s leadership of the PNCR especially after the last elections saying that he was very important in getting the APNU to where it is today.
According to Bulkan while there were several faults with the 2006 elections, Corbin acted like a statesman and accepted the results. If the PNCR had been more militant then, the persons that are willingly embracing APNU now may not have accepted them, Bulkan opined.
