Dear Editor,
Now that Brig (rtd) David Granger has been selected the PNC’s presidential candidate, the challenge to the PPP and the invitation to other contending parties and big tent hopefuls, has further defined itself. And soon the PPP would have also selected someone new to reincarnate the personality of the party and to help shape the nature of its response to the challenge of the next elections. It would be interesting to witness how it will all evolve.
Political strategy to dislodge the PPP seems to recapitulate itself in at least three differing but inter-dependent approaches, to be mentioned below.
But first we note that the entry of Granger would have changed the equations. As I noted when Mr Granger first announced his intentions, the candidacy will address something in the African-Guyanese social psychology that may have the effect of concentrating those mobilisational energies felt to have been lacking or weak during the last elections. His presence appears to have had the same effect on most interested opposition voters that Ralph Ramkarran’s declaration of intention had on the Jaganite faithful when the Speaker “threw his hat into the ring.”
This time round, the forces and factors that facilitated voter abstention or voter straying by some traditional PNC supporters during the last elections, are unlikely to arise. This time round the PNC team benefits also from the participation of Carl Greenidge, known to be a grand technocrat with both local and international experience and, in the eyes of many, the point man of the Economic Recovery Programme from which the PPP and the nation still benefits. Again, this time round, the PPP appears confused and caught in the contradictions of seeking to impose on its members a candidate (Donald Ramotar) who, despite his qualifications and stature, may be unable to demonstrate that he stands in the starting block with the benediction of the customary unanimous party endorsement. It is likely that the perceived lack of full legitimacy may discourage some PPP supporters if Mr Ramotar is annointed.
This is an important element in the reckoning. For, this time round, in my opinion and from this distance, the fluidity of the racial demographics makes it appear that a prime, even dominant, variable would be the voter turnout for each party. The key, then, is ensuring that every voter is made to count. And logically, the commanding strategy and primary goal of most in the opposition camp would consist of getting their supporters out while at the same time de-motivating the PPP sympathisers.
Objectively, if we assume that loyalty to the PPP will remain constant (because any loss of Indian-Guyanese interest or numbers is being replaced by the growing loyalties of the Amerindian communities and other non-Indian voters) we may assume that the governing party may enter this phase of its life as strong an entity as it has ever been. An unknown in this season is the extent to which PPP supporters are discouraged by the scandals of one sort or another that attach to the party. They need their morale reinforced and, importantly, they need to have the assurance that the party is set for a new departure. The character of the man to lay hands on the reins is therefore a prime consideration as the party sets its machine in motion.
For the PNC, the profile is different. Unless the AFC can be made to release some of the African-Mixed votes it captured the last time, by which I mean that they can be prised out of its handhold, the only way the election results would vary significantly from the previous exercises, would be for more PNC supporters to vote and fewer of the PPP faithful. It is therefore in the interest of each of the major parties to get a high voter turnout. This, theoretically would have always been the case, and the only case in which a PNC win is conceivable. This is one strategic approach it would seem – getting a higher voter turnout than the next man. Let us say that this kind of contest if successful eliminates the need for coalitions or big tent aggregations before or after elections. Let us say this is option Number 1 that may or may not lead to shared governance eventually.
This time round, however, the PNC has an alternative strategy. Let us say Option 2. It appears to present a scenario in which the PNC will seek to re-capture those votes lost to the AFC, plus invite other opposition parties to create a ‘big tent’ that would pool all anti-PPP aspirations into a single opposition vote. The PNC has currently incorporated the big tent idea in its strategy. Dr Cheddi ‘Joey’ Jagan has already shared with us, in these pages, his analysis of the possibilities for this type of conglomerate politics. Dr Jagan’s views on the desirability of the tent as representing something more in our political life than a simple victory for a group, is in accord with those who argue that it is also a door to racial detente and a configuration that is preliminary to a final goal of shared government.
This strategy then, represents the second possible approach to dislodging the PPP, and it is distinctive in that it has as its final goal a national government in which the PPP may still have a role. We feel the PPP will opt initially to stay in the game if it comes to that. One is reminded that the PNC had engulfed/coalesced with some smaller parties in its first big battle with the PPP in the early sixties. Big tent is therefore the second approach to which I refer but is only possible if it translates into a high voter turnout for everyone in the tent with the result that the sum of those votes exceeds those of the PPP.
The spoiler here is the AFC. Strangely, the presence of some personalities, including we now suppose, ex-Indian militants from ROAR, has led to the AFC expressing what some Africans interpret as ‘scorn’ for working with the PNC either pre or post-elections. This has sent the worst possible message to PNCites who had drifted over to the AFC. This is a constituency that has no reflexive disdain for the PNC, but has shown more of a de-solidarisation-disaffection due to recent events. In short, it is not a stable constituency but more of a swing or ‘cross-over’ type vote. A big tent solution approach as outlined above means that every vote and seat counts. And that the AFC, in case of a close fight come D day, may end up holding the cards to a victory for either the big tent or the PPP. Should it be seen as choosing to go with the PPP and hence perpetuating the current situation, it would have betrayed its mission and its supporters who believed it was working for change. Should it go with the PNC, and the PNC make the logical transition to shared governance and get everyone (PPP too) involved, then this would be the only real change possible in our circumstances. Hence, logically, the AFC should go PNC-big tent. Their current declarations on this score become meaningless when we look at the implications.
A third approach concerns the PNC arming itself with argument and charm and winning itself enough cross-over Indian votes. And so getting a simple majority – whatever the voter turn-out ends up being. Mike Persaud is the most active newspaper theoretician of this approach. His point about the prospects this movement may hold for the PNC has got to be acknowledged. But I am discounting the reliability of cross-over votes as a major factor from which the PNC may benefit. Such trans-party movement during the last elections seemed to have been primarily to the benefit of the AFC and most likely came from the specifically black-mixed block. The PPP also benefited from voter flow from the interior communities that had, generations ago, voted United Force.
The energy that dynamises our electoral process is that sentiment of racial solidarity that serves as the cohesive pole around which a group settles and which expresses itself in ways both positive and debilitating to the national effort. This energy is not diminished at this time and is, notably, still the driving force on polling day. But while Indian-Guyanese are prominent in the leadership of every major political force the nation has ever produced, the masses are welded to the Jagan legacy and vote reflexively for the PPP. One gets the feeling that the alternative would be, for most traditional supporters, abstention.
Unless something unexpected happens, the parties seem to be entering elections with the factors mentioned above salient in any constellation. It now remains to be seen who would join the big tent if it is again set up this year.
Yours faithfully,
Abu Bakr
