THE opposition PNC, AFC, the lunatic fringe (TLF), the usual suspects (TUS) and members of the Mulatto/Creole middle class (MCC), and the two private newspapers – Kaieteur News (KN) and Stabroek News (SN) – have rejected the interpretation that the PPP did fantastic in the 2023 LGE results.

Completely ignoring context (whose usage is compulsory in understanding life in general), these anti-PPP schools have advanced their own theories about the PPP’s achievements in the 2023 LGE. We will examine each paradigm separately. We begin with the PNC, AFC and TLF. Their conclusion centers of massive bribing of the electorate.

This is jumbie theorizing that is so bizarre that it further dents the credibility of the PNC. As to the AFC and TLF, they have none. So, let’s confront the bribery factor. You could never get a guarantee if you bribe someone to vote for you. The most telling example of such a foolish game was in the 1964 elections. The rich Portuguese commercial community actually gave away nice goodies for people to vote for its party, the United Force (UF).

The target group was Indians since the UF knew Africans would vote PNC and all the light-complexioned Guyanese would go for the UF. So, the UF actually spent resources enticing Indians in the areas adjacent to Georgetown to vote for it. But I heard people laughing at the UF because they took the gifts but still voted PPP.

If the PPP bribed over 8,000 African Guyanese to vote for it, then bribery turned into loyalty because those numbers actually, in secret balloting, voted for the PPP. If they have taken the money (assuming that the PPP did give it away) and planned to fool the PPP, they did not do so because the PPP collected handsome multiracial ballots.

The other nonsensical dimension to the bribery paradigm is that it is impossible in Guyana to bribe 8000 persons without that becoming a public secret. It is a virtual impossibility. It will never happen in a country like Guyana given our sharply divided society along political and ethnic lines. I am contending absolutely that if the PPP had made financial inducements to 1000 persons, we would have a tell-tale defector much less more than 8000 persons.

TUS and MCC offered a different perspective on why the PPP did good. They argued that the government went on a spending spree and voters went for it. Two rebuttals are in order. TUS and MCC would have found something anyway to deny the PPP’s achievement in 2023 LGE. That is the extent of these people’s poison.

The second rebuttal is that incumbents all over the world spend money to do things for the country. That is why all governments have a yearly budget. By what logic an incumbent would cease state expenditure simply because an election is coming up? That does not happen in the real world and it will never happen. TUS and MCC had to find a theory to knock the PPP and they found a convenient one in arguing that the government went on a spending spree.

This brings us to the private media. Both KN and SN and their anti-government columnists (for clarification – Ralph Ramkarran is not an SN columnist but SN has his permission to reprint his blog titled ‘Conversation Tree’) took the identical line that the PPP failed in the LGE in 2023 because with an oil economy swimming in petro-dollars, the PPP should have won over the PNC’s traditional bastions.

Both KN and SN are too ashamed to admit that their daily anti-PPP ranting for over three years did not hurt the PPP at the poll. When you have two newspapers on a daily pursuit against the government of the day with ugly and vicious editorializing for over three years, then the PPP should have been vanquished last Monday. On the contrary, the PPP increased its strength in every major opposition stronghold.

Kian Jabour of ANUG exclaimed on social media with Timothy Jonas at his side that for over three years, Newsroom has not said one words against the government. So, I asked Jonas for a reaction to my reaction to Jabour that for over three years, there has not been one SN editorial about anything positive about the government. In a forthcoming column, I will examine the media landscape in the context of the revelation by presidential advisor, Professor Randolph Persaud that SN is refusing to publish his letters. How do you explain the PPP’s phenomenal showing in the 2023 LGE when for the past 3 years there has been a daily dose of anti-government basking from KN, SN, TLF, TUS, and MCC? It just goes to show who the Guyanese people take seriously.