Dear Editor,
The ‘kwak’ pollster has surfaced again in May 2013 with the results of another poll. At least the pollster was practical enough to project the PPP will not get 50 per cent if an election were held today. Wasn’t it this same ‘kwak’ pollster who projected a landslide victory for the PPP in 2011?
What is really surprising is that the PPP conducted a second poll in June 2013 which was done professionally, but of course the results kept internally since it paints a different picture. From what we have read from those poll results, if an election is held today, the PPP will get 39 per cent, APNU – 33 per cent and AFC – 27 per cent respectively. That will translate to the PPP getting 25 seats, APNU 23 seats and AFC 17 seats. Under no circumstance will such a situation provide another President Ramotar with an exclusive PPP cabinet; he will have to have a PrimeMinister Granger/
Greenidge.
This situation has caused a major internal squabble in the PPP which is brewing into a permanent split already in the making between Camp Jagdeo and Camp Ramotar. The PPP knows that the people will not be kind to them for all the skullduggery taking place, and at GuySuCo some 40,000 votes are ready to rebel because of Mr Raj Singh.
This upcoming PPP Congress will be very interesting – much will come out in the wash. Camp Ramotar wants to work with APNU and share power; Camps
Jagdeo does not. Both Camp Ramotar and Jagdeo agree that they cannot do business with the AFC. So the Congress will decide whether the PPP works with APNU or not.
So even if they repeat a 2011 tactic of handing out PPP t-shirts with $5,000 pinned to the sleeves, it will not work, and they are expected to get less than 44 per cent in the 2015 elections. However, the bedrock of Camp Ramotar is Dr Roger Luncheon, the most skilful politician alive in Guyana.
The good news is Camp Ramotar will win at the Congress and that will empower President Ramotar to stamp his authority on the Cabinet for the first time since 2011. All the deals that Camp Jagdeo has been doing will be reason enough for a Cabinet shakeup in 2013. Ministers will not be allowed to spend billions without the President’s approval any more and some of them will have to go for their unprofessional conduct between 2011-2013.
We have been reliably told that the President is not happy about all the deals NICIL has negotiated – Amaila, GPL, the Kingston Hotel ‒ but he does not have any available talent to interrogate these deals. It is hoped he will confine Ram and McRae or Parmessar & Associates to a confidentiality agreement and put them to work sooner, rather than later.
Thanks to the AFC, the PPP is turning on its head. Going forward, the President will have no other choice but to work more closely with APNU and the AFC and bring back the good old fashioned Jaganite values of respecting the people, the rule of law, good governance and how to run a lean and clean administration.
The PPP has from until 2015 to get back to basics and if they cannot, the people will be most unkind to them at the polls.
Yours faithfully,
Asquith Rose
Harish S Singh
