Something in 2006 that should wake up all of us
Freddie Kissoon column
Kaieteur News
January 7, 2007
When 2006 came and it was quite clear that Guyana was going to have a general election, I wrote two articles that called upon the opposition parties, minus the PNC to avoid the Arap Moi drama.
I made reference to the election where under international pressure, Daniel Arap Moi, then President of Kenya had to hold a free poll. All the pre-election surveys showed that a united opposition could have defeated Moi. But the bickering and disagreement amongst the key players led to a disjointed opposition and Moi won a free election.
It is difficult to tell if a united non-PNC opposition would have created a hung parliament. That is best left to the individual belief. For this writer, I think so.
Before I proceed, I would like to adumbrate on the theory (mine of course) that the PNC would have not have enhanced the image of an united opposition. Readers would know that when talks were going on for a third force of all opposition parties minus the Alliance for Change, several of my essays rejected the inclusion of the PNC. I will come to that below.
My position on the pre-electoral arrangement involving the PNC was based essentially on the Indian vote. I couldn't see East Indians voting for the PNC either as the PNCR-IG or as the Third Force. Under the leadership of Robert Corbin, the PNC gave recognition to the need to give Guyana a chance.
Mr. Corbin transformed the methods and strategies of the post-Hoyte machinery at Congress Place. He eschewed the politics of ‘mo fyaah' and ‘slow fyaah' knowing that it was hurting Guyana. Of course his policy in this regard was dictated by self-interest; ‘mo fyaah' and ‘slow fyaah' was also hurting the credibility of the PNC.
Nonetheless, it should be acknowledged that Mr. Corbin should be given his due for modernizing the political approach of the PNC. His outstanding contribution in this regard was his concession to Jimmy Carter who asked him to resume his party's participation in Parliament. Mr. Corbin also visited the Indian victims of violent crimes on the lower East Coast.
I firmly believe all of this was too little too late for the PNC. From 2001 to 2006, the balance sheet of the PNC was not sufficient to impress East Indian voters. And a substantial amount of African middle voters were bitter about the Raphael Trotman ostracisation.
The treatment of Trotman; a prolonged period of opportunistic playing around with support for people with some veiled connection to violent crimes and extremist politics; a narrow type of politics, the kind that Jerome Khan complained about, in which the PNC appeared more interested in serving certain ethnic constituencies (remember my attack on them over the race nuance in the UG Vice-Chancellor scandal); a lack of dynamism in the PNC leadership; and sadly, Mr. Corbin's own questionable, long, involvement in the PNC Government, made the PNC hardly likely to get Indian votes.
One must understand, if the PNC is ever going to win a national election, given our demography, it has to attract East Indian voters.
For these reasons, I thought that a Third Force with the PNC could not have beaten the PPP. But there were macabre moments in opposition politics that showed us in 2006 that a majority of opposition people, including the PNC, that found everything wrong about the PPP were in fact no better or even worse that those that rule the country at the moment. A majority of the Guyanese people do not know why there wasn't a Third Force or why the Third Force failed to team up with the Alliance for Change.
This article is a small contribution to the exposure that should be presented to the Guyanese people. First, a number of previous existing politicians and a certain newcomer that made up the Third Force refused to merge with the Trotman/Ramjattan combination before the Alliance for Change was born. Their demand was any such association must have them (I am talking about each of them individually) as the presidential candidate. This was not only indecent politics, but lust for power.
Even if you are not a supporter of the AFC, it simply cannot be denied that it was the Trotman/Ramjattan combination that sparked expectation among a large group of Guyanese wishing for the formation of a third party with these two men in the leadership.
For the WPA, Vision Guyana, National Democratic Alliance, Unity Party and ROAR-GAP to ask to lead a united opposition without the PNC and not have either Trotman or Ramjattan as the presidential candidate would have been a miscarriage of justice and a grave injustice to Trotman and Ramjattan.
I am saying that it was an undeniable fact that these two men galvanized opposition to the ruling PPP inside the minds of many Guyanese. Most distastefully and pathetically, a combined force of all the opposition parties minus the PNC did not come into existence because many of the key players wanted to lead the united party as the presidential candidate.
What I found most emotionally irascible is that none of these candidates (four of them) would have even pulled a seat if they were (individually, that is) the presidential candidate. These were the people that asked us to believe their evaluations and analyses of the PPP, and those were that the PPP was only interested in power for power sake.
These were the people that criticized the PPP as unfit to rule us. But look at how they behaved when election time came around. Not only were there politicians that acted this way, but there were also certain civil society people that wanted to be the leading players in the newly found Alliance for Change, notably of which is a certain person who deals with financial analysis and is a fierce critic of the PPP.
When they could have had their ambitions satisfied, they refused to unite against the PPP for a cause that they have been telling us for years is good for Guyana. But they themselves were more interested in power.
Some of these persons wanted to have a Third Force with the PNC but steadfastly refused to make known their reason for this in public. Some of them do not want to tell us why they left the PNC as a result of the failure of a certain PNC big guy to step down as he promised he would when the election came around.
They evaded the question throughout the year of 2006 when confronted by journalists. It just goes to show what type of integrity these people possess.
I am sorry the AFC didn't get more seats or win the elections. But certainly the PPP is by far a better party than many of its critics, those very critics that thankfully didn't win the elections in August. I believe the fight in the future is between the PPP and the AFC. I hope there can be a compromise between them for the sake of the dear land of Guyana.