The politics of desperation
Analysis by Rickey Singh
THE date for Guyana’s next general election, expected to be held during August this year, has not yet been announced. But campaigning has already begun and with it the start of boastful promises “for change” as well as customary sniping and ridicule. What, however, came as a political shocker this past weekend was the threat of  “violent struggle in the streets” should the incumbent People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) return to power and refuses to share a new government with the parliamentary opposition.

QUOTE: Ogunseye’s hysterical threat of violence to force post-election power-sharing, linked with warnings to Guyanese of African descent, including those in the security forces, is perhaps the most provocative outburst in recent years, and clearly designed to stir racial passions in this multi-ethnic Caribbean Community state where the major political parties understand only too well the dangers of playing the ‘race card”.

Declaring what he termed “the riot act”, was a well known militant of the African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA), Tacuma Ogunseye, at a meeting held at an East Coast Demerara village (Beterverwagting) some seven miles from the capital Georgetown.
First reported by the online news service “demerarawaves.com”, operated by former Caribbean News Agency (CANA) Georgetown-based journalist, Dennis Chabrol, the race-based political threat was subsequently published on Monday by the public sector-owned ‘Guyana Chronicle” with the permission of Chabrol.
The threat by ACDA of ‘racial insurrection’ could objectively be regarded as the politics of desperation by an organization viewed in some quarters as a fringe social group, with a long supporting role for the main opposition People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) with Ogunseye himself relishing in maintaining a controversial political stance.
HYSTERICAL THREAT
But his hysterical threat of violence to force post-election power-sharing, linked with warnings to Guyanese of African descent, including those in the security forces, is perhaps the most provocative outburst in recent years, and clearly designed to stir racial passions in this multi-ethnic Caribbean Community state where the major political parties understand only too well the dangers of playing the ‘race card”.
Nevertheless, ACDA’s broadsides and interventions against the PPP/C administrations that followed the October 1992 general election—after 28 years of constant rule by the PNC–did not prevent it from receiving state funds, like other social/cultural organizations for major events, like Emancipation Day activities.
At the time of writing, neither ACDA, nor the hierarchy of the police or army had reacted to the published utterances of Ogunseye.  Also, with the exception of Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan, the AFC’s presidential candidate, there was yet to be a response from the rest of the parliamentary opposition on the controversial pre-election issue of race-generated violence to compel the PPP to share state power if it is retains the government.

QUOTE: The fundamental difference between the PPP and the PNC is that, unlike the latter, the former has never stolen its way to state power; and there’s no precedent—in this or any other region of the world, for a political party or ‘cultural’ organization to resort to racial insurrection to force the formation of a coalition government.

Ramjattan, in an invited comment published in yesterday’s Chronicle, said ACDA’s statements were “unacceptable” , “pregnant with danger” and “ought not to be supported”.
The opposition parties, including the major PNCR, are currently engaged in talks about the possibility of mounting a broad-based ‘coalition’ to oppose the PPP at the coming presidential and parliamentary elections.
The fundamental difference between the PPP and the PNC is that, unlike the latter, the former has never stolen its way to state power; and there’s no precedent—in this or any other region of the world, for a political party or ‘cultural’ organization to resort to racial insurrection to force the formation of a coalition government.
In contrast to the public silence of the opposition, the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) of Guyana, (headed by Bishop Juan Edghill), a constitutionally-created body empowered to deal with matters that could threaten racial unity and security–in particular fanning of racial violence–lost no time in announcing its decision to invite ACDA’s Ogunseye to a meeting to deal with the “riot act” comments attributed to him in media reports.
ENTER ERC
In its statement, the ERC said it “will not shirk its constitutional responsibility to summon Mr Ogunseye and have him explain the implications of his unambiguous call for racial insurrection in Guyana…”
Ogunseye was reported as telling the ACDA meeting: “If we (the opposition) win, we sharing the government with them (PPP), but we have to tell them that if we lose, we are going to fight and bring Guyana to a halt until we have a national government in which the representatives of African people and the combined opposition is part of parliament…Comrades, we are announcing the riot act…Once the African people rise up in their great numbers, I dare the army to take the side of the PPP against Africans. Our sons and daughters would not do that…”
President Bharrat Jagdeo, whose two consecutive terms as Head of State would constitutionally end with the formation of a new post-election government, reacted swiftly with a brief comment (to the Chronicle) that the Guyanese people should reject ACDA Ogunseye’s rhetoric as belonging “to the past…It is the rhetoric based on narrow interests and comes from people who do not represent anyone but want to be part of a power structure through the back door.”
“ACDA”, added the Guyanese Head of State, “has been and will remain a fringe organization…They surface at elections time. They are not mainstream, they do not represent the views of the majority of Guyanese….”
For his part, the PPP’s presidential candidate, Donald Ramotar—chosen earlier this month—made a direct connection with Ogunseye’s fiery rhetoric on threatened violence with the politics of the main opposition PNCR, by referencing that party’s criticisms of the security forces in the battle against criminality.
However, given recent statements that have been emanating from the PNCR’s chosen presidential candidate, David Granger, a former GDF Brigadier, it is felt that there could be no embracing of the rhetoric that flowed from ACDA’s Ogunseye.
It would be quite interesting indeed to see how all of the current parliamentary parties and representative social/cultural organizations respond to ACDA’s proposed “struggle” –as voiced by Ogunseye–to force the governing PPP into a post-election coalition government.