RISING tensions between the PNC and the WPA fuelled by the revelations at the Rodney Commission of Inquiry (RCOI) are very unlikely to anymore welcome the WPA’s Dr. Rupert Roopnarine as APNU’s knockout

winning Prime Minister. Expecting die hard PNC loyalists to continue embracing the WPA as trustworthy within APNU’s bosom has already started acrimonious contentiousness. With the AFC’s Mr. Moses Nagamootoo leading the attack to oust the PPP/C minority Government by a no confidence motion, the joint Opposition will certainly win.
Would APNU support the AFC motion in hopes for a coalition before the inevitable general elections? The AFC is certainly a better alternative than the skeleton WPA with no support. But historically all Guyana’s
third parties faded away over time. Since both the UF and WPA have gone impotent due to permanent election dysfunction the big question is whether the AFC will survive a snap election as the realistic representation of our races to avoid Guyana being ruled by repetitive, rhythmic, rotating red roosters on a rickety raft rolling to the rapids?
What is certain is the PNC leadership will weigh the paramountcy of internal party unity as more preferable than keeping the WPA.
Debunking their loyalists’ legitimate suspicions and fears about the WPA, brings no benefits at all but opens the party to more public ridicule. It definitely does more harm than good. What the WPA brings to the coalition is already very dubious anyway. It was PNC founder-leader Mr. Forbes Burnham who adamantly rejected any compromises with that group. What can now be the unknown secret deal substantially superior than Solomon’s wisdom to have actually catapulted them into enshrined prominence, in the first place, within APNU?
The PNC leadership cannot honestly give reassurances or disprove that the WPA is without strategic location in APNU to execute revenge for the brutal assassination of their leader.
It’s probably a major problem better left unanswered with the WPA’s own contradictions finally on course to strangle them. With all the gory
conspiracy details to kill Dr. Rodney and other Guyanese now confirmed public knowledge who gains is not the PNC.
Much depends on whether the WPA is pushed overboard or not. Dr.
Roopnarine may choose to restore his own honour by public self-immolation atop Dr. Rodney’s reignited funeral pyre in symbolic suttee.
Restoring anything left of whatever makes him “Indian” cannot hurt.
Since his racial and cultural origins are the principal pivotal reasons why he is paraded by both the Afro-centric WPA and APNU, he may start to re-establish and exonerate himself culturally; he is barren unlike his alleged hero Dr. Rodney who was a celebrated Pan Africanist. With the PNC/APNU prominently dangling him as dried bait how important are both their priorities seeking electoral redemption from the past? The PNC refuses to apologise for their transgressions during their 28-year rule. But like a phoenix rising from the ashes the WPA may still be reborn again to re-enter the conclave of hallelujah scientific socialists lately come awake, yonder.
While it is true that the textbook academic geriatrics within the WPA are without any credible grass roots support, they must be credited for outdoing themselves. Their trail confirms they have become Guyana’s best Olympic recurring political liabilities starting with their pre-1992 fallout with the PPP.
In comparison to our next door island neighbour, that country’s third parties development is at Guyana’s UF coalition stage. The Trinidad Guardian reported on 6-22-14 that the breakaway group from the Indian
based UNC which became the “Congress of the People (COP) will elect its leader (on June 29) whose task will be to redefine the party and take it into the next general election. The result would determine if COP stays where it is, within the (current) People’s Partnership (PP) Government or if it will stand alone or join one or more political groups. The flag bearer for maintaining the status quo is the current leader, Mr. Prakash Ramadhar….”  The Guardian reported that “when he led the party to the humiliating defeat in the 2013 local Government election, members of his executive, including his brother, asked for his resignation. They accused him of failing to stand up for COP within the PP coalition and demanded that the party leave the Government.”
Others in contest for the COP leadership against Mr. Ramadhar are Culture Minister, Dr. Lincoln Douglas and Mr. Rufus Foster. Noteworthy,
is the affinity which kept the COP leadership close to the “parent UNC” resulting in a coalition Government. The AFC instead prefers permanent war with the PPP/C while the PNC has expeditiously regrouped into APNU and rehabilitated the AFC’s Rafael Trotman as Speaker. They recouped most of the black votes in 2011 which he originally took away in 2006. The PPP/C on the other hand is too over confident unless it sheds its innate rigidity and reaches out to former “friends” similar to Dr. Cheddi Jagan’s exemplary rehabilitation of old time rebel Mr. Brindley Benn.
The COP chairwoman has been endorsed by the COP’s party founder-leader and current Foreign Minister, Mr. Winston Dookeran as someone who “can’t be bought….  Mr. Dookeran acknowledged that COP had lost ground.
“Today we are a mere shadow of the expectation and the energy that people had placed in us,” he added.
Guyana’s AFC so far has made no admission of lost support. Trinidad’s former finance minister, Mr. Selby Wilson also endorsed Mrs. Seepersad-Bachan. He said the COP party had lost the reputation for knowing right from wrong. “We need to do
something different and change leadership” he added.
How similar or different are the problems which faces Guyana’s WPA or the AFC? All the outdated leadership still rule the roost since their formation with no democratic changes like in Trinidad. Both
promise the moon and the stars but are in no position to deliver anything to Guyanese. Both suffer from widespread public perceptions that they do not know right from wrong to ignore approving the Anti-
Money Laundry Bill which hurts all Guyanese. Both have so far failed
to demand racial balancing of the armed forces and civil service funded
by taxpayers revenue. Whatever remains of their subsidiary faded identities after being overshadowed by PNC/APNU agenda domination is their fault completely despite their advertised good intentions. It has completely rendered both parties racial rotating leadership as most inefficient and without hope of resolving Guyana’s many problems.
Come snap elections are Guyanese likely to remain in the same quagmire, regardless who wins?
SULTAN MOHAMED