I DID not know who or what “Bam-Bam Alley” was until Leonard Craig, former AFC executive and current columnist with the Guyana Chronicle brought it up. Craig mentioned it on the Freddie Kissoon-Gildarie Show in a discussion on the electoral prospects of Aubrey Norton at the upcoming PNC congress.

When Craig directed me to where ‘Bam-Bam Alley’ was then I knew what “Bam-Bam Alley” is. Apparently, the place has lost its original name, “Sweet Point.” I know this place very well on Orange Walk at the junction with Charlotte Street. I went there several times with friends and had cook-up rice at least three times if I could remember.

Aubrey Norton frequents “Bam-Bam Alley” and that is quite well known. Craig contends that the ordinary folks that mix with Norton at “Bam-Bam Alley” constitute the bulk of the delegates at the upcoming congress and Norton can secure victory through them.

I believe Norton will pick up votes from the man/woman in the street that have a strong presence in the PNC constituencies, but victory is not assured because sometimes we take working class constituencies for granted. The proletariat and the lumpen proletariat (PLP) are not people who necessarily go for a politician who is known as a street fighter.

This theory about the PLP borders on disrespect in that it denies working class people the capacity to judge politicians from outside of their social stratum. The examples of working people wanting their leaders to be “dacta” (doctor) and “layaa” (lawyer) is quite pronounced in the world and is a tradition among the CARICOM nations.

The examples are literally in the hundreds. The lawyers, doctors, professionals and middle class folks have always done well at voting time in the PPP, PNC, the WPA, AFC, and in the United Force in the 60s. This trend needs no profound research. Just do a tiny bit of research of who were the popular leaders that got elected at congressional voting of all, without exception, all the political parties in Guyana.

There is a psychological explanation for this. The PLP folks believe that a well-endowed businessman or a well-oiled professional can bring resources to a party that the soldier in the trench cannot if such a person secures the leadership of his/her party. PLP people want their president or prime minister to be an eminent businessman or university professor. At the psychological level, they feel such people are the best kind to lead a government.

I saw in the WPA and AFC how ordinary folks were frenetic in their embrace of their party’s middle-class names, and they adamantly chose them at congress over those who were less educated even though they were party stalwarts. Sadly, that is the reality of human nature.

Hamilton Green told me in an interview published on October 16, 2017 in the Kaieteur News that he was denied the job of prime minister under the Burnham presidency because it was felt he did not have a tertiary education. When Michael Carrington challenged Khemraj Ramjattan for leader of the AFC, I will never forget the exclamation from Sheila Holder. She said: “A shoe-maker wants to be leader of the AFC.”

At the 2018 congressional election of the AFC at St. Paul Retreat Centre at Vryheid Lust, Raphael Trotman rose to say that he was not seeking any position. About a dozen persons got up and shouted: “Please Raphael, please, no Raphael, no!” Some banged their hands on the wall demanding Trotman contest. Every one of those fans was PLP people. Not one middle class member on that day made any shout to Trotman.

If the “Bam-Bam Alley” folks are decisive then James Bond should have gone far ahead in the PNC’s congressional election of 2010 and beat two middle class leaders – David Granger and Carl Greenidge.

Bond was the street man, the foot soldier, the soldier in the trenches. Granger got 279 votes, Greenidge got 264, and Bond got 20. The “Bam-Bam Alley” folks frowned on Bond. “Bam-Bam Alley” at that time was named, Sweet Point and Bond at that time used to frequent the place. I saw Bond many times at “Bam-Bam Alley” in 2010 before the PNC congress in 2011.

Interestingly, one of the perennial street fighters in the PNC, Faith Harding, was expected to beat Granger and Greenidge and collect the women votes. She got 13 ballots. The PLP and the women folks showed no faith in Faith. So 13 is an unlucky number. Ms. Harding passed way shortly after. The “Bam-Bam Alley” vote is not guaranteed to Norton. Maybe Roysdale should sip some El Dorado at “Bam-Bam Alley.”