There can be no doubt that public confidence in the opposition in general has plummeted since the 2011 national elections. Although some of the decline was inevitable, in the case of APNU, I believe that much of it has also resulted from its penchant for fictitious political posturing and a refusal to take concrete measures to attempt to win tangible benefits for – at the very least – its own supporters.
Post-election constituency blues are not unusual because of the gulf between pre-elections demagoguery and political reality that soon becomes evident. Although this difficulty is usually reserved for governments that are in the position and expected to fulfill promises made, the outcome of the 2011 elections, by providing the opposition with a majority, has placed it in the unenviable position of having raised some perhaps unrealistic expectations that it now appears unable to fulfill.
Indeed, pressed to indicate what it has achieved over the last two years, the opposition’s only real claim is that it has contributed to more accountable government. This is true, and not a small matter, but appears to fall far short of the sea-change some opposition supporters expected.
There is also little doubt that the shenanigans of many in the opposition parties’ leadership, including issues of conflict of interest and questionable parliamentary voting practices, have seriously devalued its moral currency.
So much so, that today significantly fewer people believe that should the opposition come to government in the present constitutional framework the nature of governance will be positively enhanced.
However, also added to this disillusionment in so far as APNU is concerned, is that on many occasions, its policy suggestions send a message of profound political naivety or cynicism.
Last March, at the instigation of Ms. Volda Lawrence MP, a resolution, to clean up Georgetown was taken to the National Assembly and passed with all-party support. At the time I was so alarmed at this seeming naivety that I wrote but did not publish some concerns. Of course, Georgetown has not been cleaned up and if anything, the situation appears to have become worse since the motion was passed. Not surprisingly, there has been much enquiry as to the status of the motion.
It is generally known and could not have missed the consideration of APNU that over the years the PPP/C has shown little interest in providing the resources to get the city clean and properly working. The idea is to use its squalid condition to visibly demonstrate that the PNC/APNU cannot provide the necessary services and thus cause it to lose support and ultimately control of the city’s administration.
As such, the more pertinent question is what motivated the proposers to bring the motion. What good reason did they have to presume that should it pass the PPP/C would change its errant ways? The result has shown that whatever were the assumptions of the proposers, they were wrong. Indeed, given the historical context, the most generous conclusion must be that the proposers exhibited an unexpected and unacceptable level of naivety.
Quite apart from the above stated objectives of the PPP/C, if that party did not clean up the city on its own, what possible incentive would it have to do so following an opposition motion? Of course, it must publicly support such a motion, but why should it give political credit to the opposition for something it has the capacity to do if it wishes?
A less charitable interpretation is that the proposers were not principally motivated by the need for the city to be clean but that the real motive was cynically propagandistic: intended to show without any cost to itself, that APNU was active in the interest of its supporters, many of whom live in Georgetown and to reinforce the view that the PPP/C is unreasonable.
I was reminded of the clean-up motion when last Saturday’s news broke what appears to be a similar story: APNU is now calling on the regime to join with it and others to form a social contract!
One does not have to be a genius to realise that the establishment of a workable process for the formation of a social contract in our political context is all but impossible!
The central element of any such contract is total financial and other openness, and the entire opposition has for years been telling us that getting information from the regime is worse than pulling teeth. The regime has even passed a freedom of information law that appears designed to prevent rather than facilitate the release of information.
And why does APNU ask for the establishment of even more committees when the government is already blocking outcomes from the ones that are already established – in Linden for example- and for which some of its constituency have died! The answer is the same as posited above, namely propaganda, to give the impression that the party is reasonable and making efforts, although it knows full well there will be no concrete results.
The PPP/C jettisoned the entire idea of a social contract in the late 1990s, when it decided that political/ethnic dominance was the only method of managing a divided society such as ours. Since then, the actual process of governing has made most unlikely the information flow such a venture will require. As it stands, the opposition has essentially negative parliamentary power, i.e. the capacity to prevent government action.
It should not compound this by resort to fictitious political posturing that could add to the frustration of its supporters, who, even if they see the PPP/C as essentially wicked, are also coming to view the opposition as impotent!
APNU can have a full positive agenda of important issues that affect the daily lives of its supporters, e.g. the impassible roads and other conditions in Sophia; the untimely implementation of the agreements made after the Linden debacle; unacceptable public service wages and most importantly, to the need for constitutional change!
The problem is that all the above require less talk and more focused walk, and outside of the placid “meet-the-constituency” visits, this is precisely what has been visibly absent from APNU’s arsenal.
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
