The Citizenship Initiative (TCI), has announced Rondha-Ann Lam as its presidential candidate in the party’s bid to contest the general elections slated to be held in March 2020.
In a release marking the announcement, The Citizenship Initiative (TCI) describes its presidential candidate as a mother of three and an educator with twenty years’ experience as well as being a founding member of TCI.
Lam holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree with Distinction from the University of Guyana, majoring in Literature and Linguistics, with a minor in Communications and a Diploma with Distinction in Teacher Training Certification from Cambridge University in the UK. She also speaks five languages.
In her announcement to her fellow citizens, Lam referred to part of American President, Theodore Roosevelt’s speech, “Citizenship In A Republic”, that she referred to as “words of wisdom” that have often been repeated “because of the deep truth contained in them”
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…”
Lam disclosed that since delivering the feature address at the launch of TCI as a contender in next year’s elections, she has discovered “just how much of a blood sport politics can be in Guyana.” Her decision to be involved in national politics as a leader of a fledging political party meant choosing between continuing on her newly-chosen path and continuing her teaching career.
It was, she stated, “… one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make, one that came with the one human thing that Roosevelt did not mention as natural to the arena – tears. In a little over twenty days, I will part ways with a career that I have built for over twenty years because our politics is not mature enough to allow me to serve both the people of our country and continue to serve the children I have given all of my adult life.”
Lam observed that men in the arena of Guyanese politics had many challenges to overcome; the critics, the compromised gladiators, the vested interests, the bestial violence, and often the people themselves. But according to her, these challenges multiply themselves for the woman in the arena where mere ambition is not enough. Women, she stated, must possess integrity, intelligence and courage in sufficient quantity and more often than not, even these do not count.
She referred to another female presidential candidate, Dr Asha Kissoon from The New Movement and confessed that she was expectant of the celebration accompanying the breaking of a glass ceiling in local politics.
However instead, what Lam disappointingly observed was a denigration of Dr Kissoon’s qualifications and aspersions cast on her ability as a woman to manage the country.
The Presidential Candidate emphasised her multi-lingual abilities and teaching skills and the fact that she has spent “a life in service educating the children of this country” and iterated her role as the leader of a new political party made up of competent young people “who have unanimously selected me for a great responsibility.”
She stated, “What I expect this will boil down to is that I will be called a mere teacher leading a group of amateurs wanting to lead the army, the police force, manage the resources of this country and the 700,000 strong people of this motherland.
“As an executive of a newly launched political party, I have watched as we faced the same accusations of political adventurism that every single party in this country no doubt faced in the beginning, from the original PPP in the 1950s, to the WPA in the 1970s, and the AFC in 2006. We have answered those criticisms with policy and will continue to do so when we launch our development plan earlier this month,” Lam added.
As a woman leader in a newly launched political party, Lam sought to pay homage to the “brave women” who preceded her decades ago. She also expressed her solidarity with young women presently in the political leadership of current parties, such as Dr Kissoon, Thandi McAllister, Tabatha-Sarabo Halley, and Priya Manickchand and noted that there was currently no woman seen as a frontrunner for even Prime Ministerial candidates for any of the major political entities.
The Presidential Candidate disclosed that she will be leading a small team of TCI members and executives engaging with members of the Diaspora in the upcoming week before returning to finalise the launch of the party’s website and development plan. “We will begin our very necessary conversation on policy that deals with constitutional reform, with public integrity, with equitable economic growth and diversification, with a transformative education system, with national reconciliation and with leadership in international affairs.”
