The incumbent PPP/C could struggle to gain 50 percent of the votes at the upcoming elections because of internal changes within the party in addition to its failure since 2006 to address some critical issues of concern to Guyanese, former PPP/C minister Dr Henry Jeffrey says.
Jeffrey, who recently endorsed APNU, opined that the opposition coalition and AFC could acquire enough votes to prevent the PPP from getting a majority in the National Assembly. A lot has changed since 2006, Jeffrey told Stabroek News recently, including the absence of both Dr Cheddi and Janet Jagan for the first time in the PPP’s history. This fact coupled with the defection of former PPP stalwart Moses Nagamootoo to the AFC could have a significant impact on traditional PPP supporters, Jeffrey opined.
There is also a “greater level of marginalization” in the country, Jeffrey said pointing to the ethnic composition in the public service. He said that when the PPP/C assumed office in 1992, it might have felt the need to achieve a greater level of equality in the public service things. “Now, in my view this has gone to the other end,” he told Stabroek News.
Further, he said that the Amerindians still feel marginalized. According to him, the PPP/C government was hoping to get some of the money for its Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) to help the Amerindians. Amerindians, he said, also want shared governance so that they could actually have a say on how resources are shared. “They want to sit at the table and discuss this,” he said, adding that the people on the coast cannot properly represent the case of the Amerindians living in the interior location.
Meanwhile, Jeffrey said that contrary to the view that he PPP/C has presented, Guyana’s economy has not really grown and “the country has not produced anything.” He said instead, the people are being unfairly taxed and he pointed to the implementation of the 16 percent VAT, which, he said, only serves to increase the revenue of the government.
Questioned about his criticism of the government now when he had served as a Cabinet member for most of its 19 years in government, Jeffrey said he was criticizing the administration internally for a long time. He said that now he is out of government he has more freedom to criticize the administration.
Jeffrey stepped down as foreign trade minister in 2008 after a public dispute with President Bharrat Jagdeo over the position Guyana should take regarding the implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union. He has previously held several ministerial portfolios from 1992.
Speaking about his departure from the PPP/C, he said he left because something was wrong with the party. According to him, he was a member of the PNC and he left that party because he felt something was wrong with it. Similarly, he said he left the PPP/C because he felt something was wrong with it.
Asked whether he felt that his endorsement of APNU would attract votes for the opposition coalition, Jeffrey said this was not his intention. “I have no aspirations to do anything like that,” he said.
Jeffrey endorsed the APNU in his weekly Stabroek News column, saying that it is the grouping that comes closest to his demand for radical constitutional change that would lead to shared governance. Jeffrey also argued that the APNU has a good chance of preventing the PPP/C from gaining fifty percent of the votes cast if it is able to “turn out every single traditional voter of its constituent parties; win significant quantities of Amerindian votes and strategically monitor every single polling place from the beginning to the very end of the election day process.”
Asked to explain why he felt it was necessary for the polling stations to be properly monitored, Jeffrey said that it is a widely held perception that closer to the end of polling day persons go to the polling stations to attempt to vote for absentee voters.
PPP/C executive member Clement Rohee played down Jeffrey’s endorsement, saying that while Jeffrey thinks that APNU can deprive the PPP/C of 50 percent of the votes, this will not happen. “Well this is not the first time the opposition has set out to accomplish this goal. They sought to do that quite sometime ago and we defeated every intention of theirs,” Rohee said, stressing that the opposition will “fail again.”
