At the People’s Progres-sive Party/Civic (PPP/C) rally held at Stewartville, West Coast Demerara yesterday, former president of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo urged the armed forces to “think before you vote.”
Reminding them about the hardships they faced under the People’s National Congress (PNC) government, he said there has been a major attempt to capture the hearts and minds of soldiers by the inclusion of ex-military people in the Opposition coalition – APNU+AFC.
The disciplined services are going to the polls a week before May 11 and Jagdeo said: “And I say to the soldiers and policemen…you sit down and decide who had always supported you.”
He mentioned that in 1990 the entire capital budget for the whole Army was $300,000 and that in 1991 that budget was $675,000 for the whole Army to buy equipment while in 1992 after the PPP/C took office it grew to $6M.
According to him, “Today the salary of the lowest person in the Army, a Private, if we look at his yearly salary, it is bigger than the entire budget in the Army of 1990 and 1991.”
He said that the opposition’s only legacy to the army and police was to push them to steal ballot boxes.
Jagdeo said too that many of them were forced to leave the country because they were bypassed by political commissars who were sent from the YSM into the army.
He urged the soldiers and the police not to listen
