– why the PPP lost power

Dear Editor,

EVER since the People’s Progressive Party lost the General and Regional Elections over a year ago, their leaders have engaged themselves in all sorts of divisive and potentially dangerous activities and in making statements.It is as if they can’t come to terms with the loss after 23 years in power. They continue to agitate that they were “cheated not defeated” in a manner that is counterproductive and harvesting disgust from their own followers, whom they wish to keep in a state of perpetual tension.

Neither the APNU nor the GECOM, nor the media nor the ABC/EU countries bother with the PPP’s leadership tantrums, which they deem ludicrous and pathetic.

Look PPP, you lost fair and square in a tight but just and unriggable race. Unlike what many people say, the Party might have lost much worse if Mr. Jagdeo did not enter the fray relatively late in 2015 Elections campaign with his bottom-house gutter messages (I was there and heard them) which appealed to the pathological ailment of ethnic insecurity from which Afro- and Indo-Guyanese suffer.

Let me try to help the PPP regain some elements of hope for their next campaign: Firstly and foremost, the PPP must carry out genuine and in-depth analyses and candid and soul-searching introspections as to why that Party lost the 2015 elections. In so doing, they must stop the blame game and cease portraying themselves as sore losers, which can only serve to expose them to ridicule and images of shallowness, even among their own supporters.

A wag posited that every time Mr. Rohee opens his mouth he costs his party as least five percent of his Party’s affiliation.

So here are 17 compiled considerations why the PPP really lost the 2015 General and Regional Elections. These should be placed in the recommended analytical exercise, and possibly be discussed at the party’s Congress later this year.

1: Neglect by, or failure of, the PPP to service its supporters.
2: Hubristic attitude exhibited by the PPP’s senior officers and ministers. Too many supporters complained about the behaviour of the PPP’s cadre in high office.
3: The PPP displayed an unfathomable head-in-the-sand overconfidence.
4: After 23 years in government, one begins to believe that one owns the country and its laws, principles and tested and proven official systems and methodologies could be dispensed with unceremoniously.
5: There was a pervasive (at least until shortly before the elections, when unabashed racial elements were introduced into the overt campaign rhetoric and at clandestine “bottom house” meetings) feeling all over Guyana that there was need for a change.
6: Uninspiring presidential and prime ministerial candidates! The choice of Ms. Harper (notwithstanding her absolutely charming nature and expertise in the Foreign Affairs Ministry) did in fact create discord within the PPP and its supporters, especially when Ms. Carolyn Rodrigues (who was identified as an Amerindian vote getter) was shunted aside and replaced by a weak non-Party candidate.
7: Mr. Ramotar’s Party received 32 seats in 2011. What massive inputs and activities since then could Mr. Ramotar pinpoint that would make his Party obtain more votes and therefore more seats than in 2011?
8: Corruption in Government was perceived to have reached unprecedented high levels of practice.
9: A perceived unwillingness to replace several extremely failing and non-functioning ministers and members of Parliament.
10: An obvious (as seen by many, including PPP supporters) unwillingness/failure to remove several odious, intemperate, and excessively indulgent high-ranking party officials.
11: Long-serving and genuinely loyal pro-Party cadre and Executive Committee/Central Committee members were treated shabbily. This may be linked with the re-emergence of Bharrat Jagdeo just before May 2015 as a major voice in the PPP. Even though many Party supporters rallied behind Jagdeo’s gutter diatribes, many party supporters were uncomfortable with this development and were dissatisfied with this breach of faith/trust against tested and proven comrades.
12: An unwillingness and almost instinctive aversion to cultivate cordiality and fellowship with the media. In fact, the opposite seems to be the modus operandi; whereby antagonisms, disaffection and antipathy were nurtured and openly expressed against media practitioners and media house proprietors.
13: An analysis of the results shows that there was an actual crossover vote in addition to the disinclination by many to vote at all (the ‘turn-out’ rate 71 percent was of the registered electorate/potential voters).
14: The Party’s historical vexation with the USA, Canada and the UK seemed (seems) to be ineradicable from the psyche of the Party leadership, so much so that no greatly visible effort at rapprochement with ABC countries was made. In fact, hostilities were palpable and objectively cultivated.
15: Migration of PPP (Indian?) supporters, perhaps facilitated (visa-wise and God knows what else?) by those countries which are favoured destinations for migrants. One non-partisan author actually documented that the attrition human (= voter) loss brought about by migration over a protracted period had/has transformed the PPP-endorsing majority into something closer to 40 per cent of the electorate.
16: The APNU was not baited to take protests to the streets to display dissatisfaction with what was considered to be the PPP Government’s callous and disrespectful activities vis-à-vis APNU
17: APNU was able to lure supporters of other political parties; eg: the AFC, the United Force, the Justice for All Party and a host of small parties, into their political ambit.

The reader will notice that many of the possible cases have already been singularly documented by patriotic Guyanese. I have now tried to put all their opinions together with my own, simply because it hurts to see an erstwhile vanguard political party fall into such disrepute and be an object of such derision.

ELECTORAL AND POLITICAL ANALYST