HGP Nightly News – Just weeks after publicly expressing frustration over declining sugar production and warning that underperformance at GuySuCo could not continue, President Irfaan Ali stood before sugar workers at the Enmore Martyrs commemoration and reflected on a different threat to the industry.
Addressing workers gathered for the observance, Ali argued that the struggle to protect the results of the 2020 elections was also a fight to safeguard jobs, incomes, and the future of thousands of families that depend on the sugar sector.
President Ali used the platform of the Enmore Martyrs observance to draw a connection between the 2020 elections and the fortunes of Guyana’s sugar industry, telling workers that the battle to protect the election results was ultimately a fight to preserve livelihoods.
Speaking to sugar workers and other attendees, Ali said many citizens who cast ballots in 2015 could not have anticipated the consequences that would follow for the industry and its employees.
The President argued that workers were left without jobs, income, and the ability to adequately provide for their families following decisions taken during the previous administration’s tenure.
Ali said the events surrounding the 2020 elections represented another critical moment for the country, contending that stakeholders had to resist efforts that he suggested could have undermined justice and democratic governance.
“Many of us would have never imagined” that in 2020 there would have been a struggle to safeguard the election results, he said, while recalling the prolonged political impasse that followed the March 2020 General and Regional Elections.
He told the gathering that future generations would one day ask questions about that period and the challenges faced by those seeking to uphold the electoral outcome.
According to Ali, members of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic and other stakeholders stood together at a time when “injustice could have overtaken everything.”
The remarks come against the backdrop of the President’s recent criticism of GuySuCo’s production performance. In recent weeks, Ali has publicly voiced concern over falling sugar output and warned that improvements are needed if the industry is to meet expectations.
Despite those concerns, the President’s address at Enmore focused largely on the historical and political struggles linked to the sugar industry, using the occasion to underscore what he described as the importance of protecting both democratic institutions and the livelihoods of sugar workers.
The annual observance commemorates the five Enmore Martyrs, whose deaths during a 1948 labour dispute remain a defining chapter in Guyana’s labour movement and political history. Enmore Martyrs continues to be remembered as a symbol of workers’ struggle and sacrifice.
