Terrence Campbell, Parliamentary Leader of A Partnership for National Unity, has drawn public criticism after directing a racially charged remark at a rival Member of Parliament during a community gathering in East Coast Demerara. Campbell called James Bond, who now sits with the governing People's Progressive Party/Civic, a "house slave" while Campbell was among a group of APNU protesters confronting Bond as he met with local residents. The comment has prompted widespread condemnation online, much of it focused on the practice of policing the political choices of Afro-Guyanese citizens.

The confrontation took place at Melanie, a village on the East Coast of Demerara, where Bond had gone to engage residents directly. Campbell was present among a body of opposition protesters who moved to confront him during that engagement. Bond is a former member of the People's National Congress Reform, the largest party within the APNU coalition, and his decision to appear and canvass in what is regarded as opposition territory appears to have been the immediate trigger for the clash.

Reaction on social media was swift. Citizens weighed in on both the substance of the remark and what it revealed about the wider culture of political loyalty in Guyana. One commentator, Delon Moffett, wrote that he could not respect anyone who claims to speak for the interests of black people while shouting down any black citizen who exercises independent political judgment, arguing that no party holds an inherited claim on the support of any racial group. Another citizen, Asif Williams, went further, accusing the opposition of deliberately working to keep the country divided along racial lines and questioning why Bond should face hostility simply for campaigning in an APNU stronghold.

Underlying much of the criticism was a shared argument. Political affiliation, commentators said, ought to be a matter of free choice rather than an obligation tied to ethnicity, and citizens should be able to exercise that choice without facing verbal abuse framed in racial terms.

This is not the first time such language has surfaced in Guyanese political life, nor is Bond himself a stranger to it. In 2022, government minister Susan Walrond described being called a "house slave" from the moment of her appointment, saying she had been told she was unworthy of the role because she had chosen to support the PPP/C rather than the coalition she previously backed. In the same period, Bond publicly accused colleagues within the APNU+AFC coalition of racialising a private dispute, saying they had cast him, a Black man, as subordinate to an associate of a different ethnic background.

The pattern has continued in the years since. When Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo addressed criticism of Bond's political switch, he noted that Bond had been repeatedly disparaged as a "house slave" or "slave catcher", insults he dismissed as baseless attempts to punish people for making their own decisions about their political future. Other former opposition figures who have moved toward the PPP/C, including former mayor Patricia Chase-Green and former APNU member Trichria Richards, have faced comparable labelling from opposition-aligned commentators.

Bond himself has previously rejected the accusation that switching political allegiance amounts to betrayal, saying he found it strange to be branded a house slave for supporting cooperation across party lines rather than division.

The recurrence of this language, from multiple figures within the opposition and directed at multiple Afro-Guyanese individuals over several years, points to a persistent feature of the country's political discourse rather than an isolated outburst. Guyana's politics remain heavily shaped by ethnic voting patterns, and accusations of racial betrayal have long been used as a tool to discourage crossover support. The latest exchange between Campbell and Bond suggests that dynamic remains firmly in place, and that efforts to challenge it continue to meet resistance from within the political class itself.

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