CRACKS are appearing in the coalition, and are coming to the fore even two days before the election. Just observe A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), which really is the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) and a few small parties of little significance. This happening should not be surprising, as it is quite easy to crack a shell, so fracturing the APNU shell coalition is no challenge. Incidentally, the state of the old PNC is in rapid decline, for, not long ago, the small ‘shell’ party, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), performed a coup d’état on the House of APNU, thereby reducing the dominance of the PNCR as the mainstream coalition partner.
Let me revisit the APNU cracks. These cracks in the shell are intermixed with cognitive dissonance,the early symptoms being despondency. This was an old gimmick of the People’s National Congress (PNC), then it became the heirloom of the PNCR, and now this culture of despair has become invasive within the APNU camp.
Clearly, some months ago, the ‘also ran’ politicians in Guyana assembled APNU with the hope of winning the general and regional elections on November 28, 2011. Nevertheless, the writing is now on the wall that this hope of electoral victory remains a hope, creating considerable psychological discomfort in the APNU bull pen. This psychological discomfort is dissonance, using Leon Festinger’s language. So attempts are in train to reduce this psychological discomfort (dissonance) and to regain some psychological comfort (consonance).
That is why there is a letter in one of this morning’s dailies (November 26, 2011) by one Mr. Ram trying to explain away APNU’s dissonance, to restore calm in the APNU dressing room. The Ram letter, while it made no mention of APNU, does embrace a consistent PNC strategy over the years. The letter mouthed a handful, saying that whatever happens at the November 28 elections, the elections would not be fair. And this argument that the elections would be unfair is what APNU would tell its supporters, should APNU lose the elections.
In this way, APNU may reduce its dissonance or psychological discomfort that it now experiences with a cracked ‘shell’ coalition. And as long as this dissonance continues, APNU will continue to search for ways to relieve this discomfort, the despair of being the loser on November 28. For these reasons, look out for more excuses from APNU, as the despair brings home the reality of electoral defeat. History will demonstrate that this PNC strategy enamoured every election in which it was a contender.
The PNC, now APNU, never won an election in Guyana. And every time the PNCR suffered defeat at an election since the 1960s, it tried to reduce its psychological discomfort through street protests; to let its supporters know that the defeat was not really a defeat but a victory, were there no wrongdoing; a camouflage by all standards.
During the 1960s, after suffering electoral defeat, the PNC expressed concerns at the PPP Government administration’s critical emphasis on agriculture in its national budget.  The PNC engaged in numerous protests, citing marginalisation as its concern.  The PNC argued that its populous support was from non-agricultural settings, thus the budget, by greatly concentrating on agriculture, failed to provide for its mainstream supporters, and therefore marginalised its followers.
Agriculture remains the foundation of this economy, and so any right-thinking government would have no choice but to underline agriculture, perhaps in an added diversified fashion today. For these reasons, the PNC’s acrimony toward agriculture was another breed of camouflage.
And both the 1992 and 1997 electoral losses raised the PNCR’s snivels of rigged elections.  Subsequently, in 2001, after former President Desmond Hoyte’s three consecutive electoral defeats, the PNCR’s howling returned to marginalisation.
It seems that the logic of electioneering within the PNCR and now APNU is to socialise its supporters to think that they were always electoral winners, and that they would only lose if the elections were unfair, an added camouflage.  Over the years, the PNCR tried to reduce its dissonance or psychological discomfort of experiencing electoral loss vis-à-vis presenting the strategy that the elections were unfair; in the same way as someone called Mr. Ram did this Saturday (November 26, 2011) in one of the dailies, projecting that the elections on November 28 would be unfair. This fellow Ram is plugging the ancient PNC strategy, of which APNU is now the heir. APNU’s despair of electoral defeat really is an advantage to the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), and also a good reason to vote for the PPP/C, come November 28.