The newly-formed Guyana Patriotic Alliance (GPA) sees itself as the bold alternative to the PPP and PNCR and its leader, attorney-at-law Vic Puran says that following the 2006 elections it will be forming the next government.
The key to his party's success will be the one and one dialogue it intends to have with each of the 400 000-member electorate, Puran says, noting that though it seems a daunting task it is not impossible. "The people must be weaned from them before they can meet the great future that God has destined for Guyana."
Puran was a member of the PPP's Progressive Youth Organisation and defected to the PNCR at the same time as Vincent Teekah, Ranji Chandisingh and Halim Majeed. He worked as a political assistant to then President Forbes Burnham but was forced to resign, he says, because of a disagreement with Burnham's Chief Political Adviser Elvin McDavid. McDavid, however, says otherwise.
In an interview with Current Affairs, Puran said that he and his colleagues are confident that the GPA can form the next government because the circumstances are right for a party that can capture the imagination of the people.
"There is a receptivity in the population at this point in time that before now was absent," Puran explained and cited the Vishnu Bisram poll published a few months ago that cited widespread disenchantment with both the PPP and the PNC.
Also, unlike most of the other parties that had sprung up in the past, the GPA's aim, he said, is not just to win some votes so as to hold the balance of power between the PPP and the PNC. Our aim is to win the elections, he asserted. Puran said that neither the Justice for All Party, led by C N Sharma nor ROAR Guyana Movement which Ravi Dev leads, nor the Working People's Alliance have been able to do this.
"We are going to win the next elections as the bold alternative to the PNC and the PPP and we are going to do so by putting the Guyanese people where they belong at the centre of our programmes and policy," Puran promised.
He explained that for the past fifty years neither the PPP nor the PNC has been able to convert the country's vast potential resources into actual goods and services for the Guyanese people.
He said during the tenure of the PNC no African ever received 500 acres of land which is a crying shame in a country of 83,000 square miles. Nor, he said, has any ordinary person received any commensurate benefit under the PPP. He accused both parties of usurping the patrimony of the Guyanese people and keeping the benefits away from them. That, he said, was the reason for the reception his party has been enjoying.
Puran asserts that the only way the country can realise the potential of all its resources is through a party of the Guyanese people.
Putting his party chances in historical perspective, Puran said that the 1992 elections was Cheddi Jagan's to win and even he voted for him. So, too, was the 1997 elections even though he had died.
The 2001 elections he said was a different matter as even though Cheddi Jagan was not there the Working People's Alliance (WPA) had failed to transform itself into a vote getting machine. "Elections are won by footslogging and tireless work on the ground," he explained, and the WPA did not even cross the threshold.
The root cause of the WPA's failure he said lies in the fact that the party after Rodney's death was not the same party it was when he was alive.
Programme
Asked what programmes the GPA would be putting forward that would capture the imagination of the people, Puran explained that the GPA's programmes would be the product of its interaction with the people, since there is no merit in producing a 'wish list' He said that the major task his party sees before it is the creation of an awareness among the Guyanese people that unless they all work together there will be no development. Also, he said that they must realize that unless there is social peace there will be no development.
He said that for the past four years the economy has declined and its effects have been felt by all races and in every region. As a result, the GPA leader said that the party's task is to help create a new hope. Once that hope has been created, Puran said, his party would launch its manifesto.
Puran explained too that drafting a development plan to lift the country from the abyss it is now in would require considerable expertise and as such the GPA is open to ideas from every quarter as a national approach to the drawing of such a development plan is needed and an individual would not have to be a member of the party in order to influence the programme which it would take to the people.
The other members of the GPA leadership are deputy leader Hubert Wong, chairman, Gloria Stephney, vice chairman Lawrence Harris, secretary Peter Persaud, assistant secretary, Angela Gouveia, and treasurer Barbara Mckenzie. In addition to these persons, Puran said there are six committee members and representatives from each of the ten administrative regions as well as from the United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Venezuela and Brazil.
About the political experience of the leadership team, Puran said that Wong has worked in the Office of the Prime Minister, Persaud has at various times been the general secretary of both The United Force (TUF) and the Guyana Democratic Party, Bryan McIntosh had a been a leading member of the TUF, Frederick McWilfred, one of the regional representatives, was a special political assistant to Burnham and Harris was a member of the youth arm of the PNC, the Young Socialist Movement.
Together, he said, they constitute a considerable bank of political expertise and experience, a necessary prerequisite for making informed decisions.
About the GPA's plans, Puran said that it has acquired some land at Auchlyne on the Corentyne Coast and would be setting up an office there. Another office is to be set up in South Road and Puran said that it is the party's intention to set up offices that are conveniently accessible. He is asking interested persons to donate premises that the party could use as offices.
Mobilising support
About its plans to mobilise mass support, Puran explained that communities are being divided into units of 100 houses and volunteers would be going from house to house. He said the party expects to attract about 250 volunteers for this task and expressed the hope that people in the various communities would become involved in the exercise.
The GPA leader said that his party had to get through to the people at the emotive level and would have to do this through a lot of one on one dialogue. He said that so far the leadership has been heartened by the response and that this is an indication that they are being galvanized.
However, he says how much the party would be able to do would be dependent on money and he would leave it to the people to look at his party's leadership to see if it's worthy of their support since he didn't feel comfortable asking them for money.
He said too that the party intended to launch an information sheet which would be a focal point for ideas and through it commence the discussions on its programmes.
He said that the party leaders have already begun travelling around and they recently visited areas in the Berbice River and on the Essequibo coast. He said that they expect the Guyanese people to see them as being in the struggle and being in it for the long haul. He observed that the task before his party was Herculean but Hercules had demonstrated that it is doable.
Local government
Puran said that the GPA intends to contest the local government elections whenever they are held. He says that local democracy must become part of Guyanese life and as a consequence the party which holds power at the national level must hold less at the local level.
He accused the PPP and PNCR of deceiving the people with their talk of shared governance since this form of governance is already available through the regional system which if it functions properly would eliminate perceptions of alienation.
For example, he said that if the $45 million the government spent on constructing a secondary school recently had been given to the people they would have built not only a school, but an old peoples' home, and community centre and still have money left over. "There is no greater democracy than giving people the resources to govern themselves," Puran observed.
He accused both the PPP and PNC of being afraid to face elections at the local government level as they fear being rejected by the people.
And he said that their fear is not unreasonable as the PPP was forced to celebrate its 50th anniversary and just 1139 people turned up at Babu John for the activities to observe Cheddi Jagan's death anniversary, an event he describes as the most emotive in the PPP's calendar of activities.
On the other hand the PNC co-sponsored the Rule of Law march for which only 50 people turned up at the Square of the Revolution even though the size of the crowd when the march left Parliament Building was 700, most of whom were from out of town. That, he said, is an indication that the PNC has lost much of its support.
About the electoral system that should be used at the local government level, Puran said that the elections should be constituency based with the neighbourhoods being the basis of the constituencies.
He observed that the country needs to get back to having village councils which allowed for accountability and transparency, not have the political parties usurp all the political space as this leads to massive alienation. The aim should be, Puran says, to bring people back into governance.
He said too that there should be an appropriate system of fiscal allocation to the various levels of local government with a clear definition of the levels at which certain activities would be carried out.
Accountability
Puran cites the bridge-building programme being carried out by the central government on the East Coast Demerara with each bridge costing US$1 million. He explained that if there was local involvement the residents in the various communities along the East Coast would have been able to assess if the money being spent for their benefit and in their name was being well spent. "People must have a monitoring role, " he asserts, explaining that whatever work is done in a particular community should be budgeted for through the Neighbourhood Democratic Council and a mechanism established to how it is linked to the national good. "That is the only way to end alienation", he observed.
Another example of the squandermania is the $22 million being expended to construct a sluice at Lancaster when there is an existing sluice at Auchlyne, the outflow from which is silted up.
He said that the Auchlyne sluice could be rehabilitated and reactivated at less than a cost of $22 million and would provide better returns than the one proposed at Lancaster.
But he says the behaviour of the authorities in these areas conform to the mathematical theory of corruption which holds that you can steal based on the amount available for spending.
New parties
About the multiplicity of parties which spring up whenever general elections are called, Puran said that it is an indication that the PPP and PNC have been unable to satisfy the psychological needs of the people.
About the manner in which the GPA would relate to the PPP and PNC, Puran said that in their present form both parties are inimical to the interest of the Guyanese people. But he asserts that they both have within their membership decent people and among their supporters people who care about the country.
But he says that persons with self-serving interests have captured both parties as demonstrated by the 29 PPP members who found it possible to say that Ramjattan did not speak the truth about the accusation he made against President Bharrat Jagdeo.
He said that as a consequence the GPA will not participate in any of their activities and will engage them at every level in debate so as to lay bare their true nature before the Guyanese people.
Puran noted that the wisdom of the Guyanese people is driving them down the same path that led to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, and in the same way the people would reject the PPP and PNC.