GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) — The Working People’s Alliance (WPA) marked the 42nd anniversary of the assassination of its co-leader, Dr Walter Rodney, on Monday with a pledge to help create an organised national movement to resist “dictatorship” and create a new political order based on power-sharing.

“Such a movement should be multi-party, multi-racial and multi-class. WPA is prepared to help build that movement. Our objective in this regard is not just the offending party, but most importantly, against the offending political order,” the WPA said in a statement reflecting on the June 13, 1980 bomb-blast that killed Rodney, a noted academic.

Rodney was killed after being supplied with a bomb in a walkie talkie by then Guyana Defence Force (GDF) electronics expert, Sergeant Gregory Smith, who then fled to French Guiana until his death from cancer in 2002.

Last year, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Civic-led Administration amended Rodney’s death records to reflect that he was assassinated, that the 1988 inquest into Rodney’s death would be invalidated because it states that he died as a result of misadventure.

The WPA noted that during the period 1970 and early 1990, together with the PPP they shared the common objective of removing the then Forbes Burnham-led People’s National Congress (PNC) Government.

In what had been widely regarded as the first free and fair elections in 28 years, the PPP won the October 5, 1992 General Election.

But the WPA, which had been a junior partner in the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Government that lost the 2020 General Election, said while electoral democracy is an “essential ingredient” in building a democratic order, it warned that an anti-dictatorial movement similar to the Rodney period “must not simply exchange one party for the other as we did in 1992, but it must strive to erase the conditions under which dictatorship thrives.

“WPA is not surprised that since coming to office in 2020 the PPP has fast-tracked the Government and State in the dictatorial direction. The manner in which it came to office in the wake of the disputed 2020 election and its agenda of domination coupled with its willingness to stretch the limits of the majoritarian winner-takes-all system in the context of ethnic division provide fertile grounds for dictatorship.

“The willingness of some of the Guyanese elites to succumb to the pressure of political expediency also played a pivotal role in clearing the way for the current dictatorial order,” the WPA said in the statement.

The WPA, which has since withdrawn from the APNU, said that the ultimate defence against foreign domination and domestic ethno-racial domination must be through power-sharing and shared governance.

It reminded the population that Rodney was killed “by the Government and State that had descended to the lowest depths of dictatorship and autocracy” and urged the population to reflect on whether Guyana has returned to the dictatorial Government and State against which Rodney fought.