APNU is not an event of importance

Dear Editor,

Abu Bakr needs a reality check (‘The emergence of APNU is an event of importance,’ SN, July 11). Actually, it is an event of Machiavellian and megalomaniacal importance. But in terms of anything decent or politically productive, it changes nothing, does nothing, offers nothing and is nothing. All of the parties in APNU have both feet in the grave with the dirt already being piled in. The WPA and in particular Rupert Roopnaraine has sold its soul for a taste of power without realizing that the PNC, which is really APNU, cannot ever win a free and fair election in this racial voting madhouse called Guyana. The numbers cannot ever support a PNC victory. Walter Rodney must be rolling in his grave with the WPA’s alliance with the PNC. I suspect Dr Roopnaraine’s statement about the WPA accumulating arms prior to Dr Rodney’s killing was to prepare the public for his misguided act in joining hands with the PNC in this APNU fiasco.

The WPA did not have a lot of political trust left as most of the younger voters do not even know why it had trust to begin with. For Mr Bakr to argue that the PNC gains trust by bedding a vanished WPA is an absurdity of no small order.

The AFC is right not to join the PNC or APNU for identity’s sake. Why should the AFC share its spoils with the PNC when it can represent its voters alone if it wins enough to create the nation’s first minority government? Those PNC votes that migrated to the AFC drifting back to the PNC (APNU) change nothing for APNU. Even if the entire 8.4% of the AFC`s 2006 election tally goes to the PNC, it ends up with 42.4% of the entire vote, still some 12.2% behind the PPP. That 7.4% to a majority cannot and will not happen. It is one of those Sisyphean feats. The PNC has never obtained more than 42% of the vote since 1992. This election will be won by a third party that is able to break through and hold the balance of power in a minority government situation.

The PNC or APNU or whatever is it now called, cannot get that 50%. It simply can’t. David Granger can’t. Just like the PNC hasn’t for the past 19 years. So, those progressive African-Guyanese and African-Mixed Race individuals who may be contemplating returning to the fold of the PNC (APNU) after voting for the AFC in 2006 have to think carefully if this is going backwards or going forward in reverse. Do they support a party that never wins (such as the PNC or APNU) or a party that will likely not win but win enough to hold the balance of power in the land (such as the AFC)? Sometimes 15% or 20% of the vote can mean much more than 34%.

These nondescript APNU parties bring nothing to the table. The current PNC cannot deliver anything to them in terms of power as the current PNC will not ever win power again unless it radically changes. So, this is a group of also-rans that add nothing of value to the political scene. A PNC or PPP Truth and Reconciliation Commission is always a good laugh. People will show up to discover the truth cannot be found. How could these two political pariahs who wrecked this country since 1950 and who couldn’t handle the truth then and can’t handle it now, be able to handle it when such a commission is formed?

Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell