Some thoughts on Afro-Guyanese support for PPP and the rapid decline of the AFC

 by Leonard Craig

AFC undoubtedly has a place in Guyana’s political history which no one can credibly dismiss as being insignificant. Being there from its inception, I saw firsthand the multiracial support which the party received and the general goodwill showered on the party even from people who would never vote for it.

I remember while campaigning for the AFC in Region Five during the 2006 General and Regional Elections, we sought a temporary location for our central campaign office. A gentleman in the PPP stronghold of Cotton Tree, told us, point blank, “yall kan’t convince me fuh vote fuh ahyu, me ah PPP, but meh gon gee ahyu meh place fuh use.” His reasoning was that he supports political multiracialism and he did not see AFC doing anything to undermine racial unity so though he was a staunch PPP supporter, he displayed tremendous sympathy for the AFC.

As we moved around the rest of the country, we received similar sentiments in PNC strongholds also.

Undoubtedly, as evident by the massive loss of seats by the PNC in 2006 and the minority PPP government following 2011, the AFC benefitted from traditional voters from both parties. These results led AFC to believe it can win government in a coalition with APNU. AFC used its seven seats and employed the “last mile” theory to bargain for a guaranteed 12 seats. For those who are not aware, let me digress a bit to explain the last mile concept. There are 10 miles to travel, for whatever reasons, all your best efforts and resources can only take you nine miles. You need some external help to complete the last mile. Essentially, the real value of the contribution is more than a mile.

That said, we will never know how many seats AFC would have contributed to the coalition’s 2015 victory. However, it is indubitably clear that AFC lost support to the PPP that is equivalent to at least 3 clear seats. How do I know this? In 2011 the AFC made massive inroads in PPP strongholds of Region Six, along with some modest gains in Region 2, together producing 3 seats. In 2015, the vote tally was back to 2006 levels in PPPs favour. Many theories abound about how the votes were rejigged to produce the exact 1 seat parliamentary majority which the coalition enjoyed in 2015 as did the combined opposition in 2011, that analysis for another time.

Post 2020 AFC took a massive hit in activists/membership attrition and, along with it, the national goodwill, a trend which started while it was in government. It suffered so severely that the AFC was without competent party mobilisers to field slates for the 2023 Local Government Elections. As a cop-out and mortally afraid of humiliation, it claimed that the list was unusable. Given the current trajectory of demonstration of lack of political imagination coupled with a new breed of political loafers and free riders, I believe the AFC lost its activists and voting support for good. With this massive loss of support, there is a cohort of voters and activists looking for a place to land. For today let us look at a narrow segment of this cohort that will be critical for the 2025 contest.

Because of the impact of the AFC, there is a significant (or marginal, depending on how you look at it) number of Afro-Guyanese, especially in their 20s, 30s and early to mid-40s who have never voted for PNCR/APNU, (i.e voted for AFC at every election since 2006) and possibly feel no sense of race-based allegiance to the PNCR. This cohort is less likely to be moved by nostalgia for ‘the great founder leader’ and will not be swayed by chants of “soup drinka,” “sellout” and “house slaves” etc.

They use a different matrix for evaluating, selecting and following a political party. They are more amenable to an appeal to their multiethnic instincts. There isn’t an earth moving or major mass of such persons existing in any specific constituency, but smidges sprinkled all over the country, sizeable enough to make notable seating shifts when reckoned together via proportional representation. The PPP has already demonstrated that it is best positioned to appeal to this group. LGE 2023 has many telltale signs for GRE2025.

We can debate all day about whatever political methodology, schemes or budgetary allocations the PPPC utilised to tap into this cohort. The cumulative result created seat shifts in favour of the PPPC in areas where there should be no question that voters were Afro-Guyanese. Then there is another noteworthy and group of Afro-Guyanese who shifted to the PPPC; the traditional PNCR voter who decided to break the cycle for whatever reason. Having broken that cycle, those folks may have come closer than we think to shaking the remnants of the ethnic solidarity guilt trip of betraying their party and selling out their people. Will this settle into a national voting subculture? Can this become a contagion? 2025 beckons.