PEOPLE vote for all types of reasons. The list includes ideology, ethnicity, personal gains, business connections, friendship, etc…. Depending on the circumstances at a particular time in a country, people can change the reason for their vote.

Why this switching comes about is because society is never static and the dialectics act upon society to bring about social and philosophical waves humans cannot anticipate. The largest philosophical awakening of how the dialectics intrude on human action was the outbreak of the First World War.

The Communist International, based on Marxist class analysis had advised working peoples of Europe not to participate in the war because it was an imperialist conflict driven by capitalist greed. But in the end the working classes of Europe ditched class solidarity and embraced nationalist sympathies, fighting for individual countries.

The prioritising of nationalist loyalty over class struggle resulted in the execution by the German Government of perhaps two of the greatest liberation communists in world history – Rosa Luxemberg and Karl Liebknecht.

It remains a mystery why two of the most enduring leftist thinkers in the PPP – Donald Ramotar and Clement Rohee – have never named a reading room in the Dr. Cheddi Jagan Library in Red House after them.

White Americans chose not to use the ethnic option in 2012. They gravitated toward Barack Obama for ideological reasons. One was that they viewed Hilary Clinton as part of the Washington DC/Wall Street connection.

Secondly, they felt that Clinton was pro-war while Obama had voted against the invasion of Iraq as a senator. White folks switched from Obama in his second presidential bid, thus denying him a majority in the House and Senate that literally paralyzed his second-term presidency.

Indians in 2015 moved away from ethnic voting and chose ideology when they voted for the AFC. After the AFC invented the second most disastrous political crisis in Guyana’s history second only to the split in the PPP in the early 1950s, Indians went back to the PPP in 2020 thus contributing to the PPP’s victory.

In Trinidad, Africans in two marginal constituencies chose issues over ethnic sympathies when they voted for an Indian Prime Minister, Kamla Bissessar. The next election, they switched back to ethnic balloting.

In Guyana this morning of Monday, June 12, a fluid situation exists. The PPP has never won the Georgetown municipality. Out of the 94 mayors, Georgetown has had, not one has come from the PPP. There are of course logical reasons for this: vast PNC constituencies outnumbering PPP urban enclaves have continued to this day.

Ethnic voting has denied the PPP the control of City Hall from early colonial times, with only two Indians – Rahman Gajraj and Lionel Luckhoo — in the 1950s and 1960s becoming mayors but they did not contest on a PPP ticket. Since that era only two Indians have become mayors – Cecil Persaud and Ubraj Narine. The latter became mayor, 38 years after the last Indian mayor – Cecil Persaud in 1980.

In an appearance on the Freddie Kissoon-Gildharie Show two weeks ago, Labour Minister Joseph Hamilton when asked if the PPP will win the City Council this time, he said it will be close. The reasons why it will be close today are because of demographics, the economy and pragmatism.

It is too early to dismiss ethnic voting today. The Georgetown electorate starts from Cummings Lodge and ends at Agricola. A demographic analysis would reveal that in the voting pattern for the past eight decades, Georgetowners employed the race determinant and not the issue factor. But that could change today for three reasons.

One is that Guyana’s incredibly young population includes African-Guyanese who do not see politics the way their parents and grandparents saw it decades ago. There are many reasons for this, including the age of the internet and more ethnic mixing in schools and tertiary institutions.

Secondly, I don’t think young African Guyanese are enamoured of their leaders they way their elders were decades ago. The current crop of African leaders is poor and mediocre when it comes to strategizing. They believe that the methodology of mo fyaah/slo fyaah is productive.

It is in fact counter-productive. Today African youths will not take to the streets to senselessly burn and the security forces will not allow that.

African leaders also resort to barefaced deceptions in the hope that they can fool almost half of the population. A perfect example is the bankrupt, repeated sermon that the PNC won the March 2020 elections.

Finally, Guyana is a petro state with money available to fix Georgetown and fix it handsomely. African Guyanese know this is a new Guyana, and they may vote in a new way. I hope they do.