NEXT week marks three years (2018) since the Alliance For Change (AFC) back-bencher Charrandas Persaud voted in favour of the PPP Opposition-sponsored No-Confidence Motion (NCM) against the APNU+AFC Coalition Government in the National Assembly. It was a defining moment in Guyana’s political history that had never happened before. I suppose a few would forget that political episode.

Persaud has maintained that he was not forced or influenced by the PPP or anyone to vote in favour of the NCM. He said he voted with his conscience, purporting that he was against the Coalition’s policy for passing a pension bill for Hamilton Green of a monthly sum of G$1.3 million and the closing of the sugar estates in his home county of Berbice. In the latter situation, Persaud stated that he saw the suffering of the sugar workers and that was too much for him to ignore. He had to do something even if that meant putting his life on the line.

The above background information on the NCM which led to the eventual ousting of the Coalition from power is, of course, not news. What is worth reiterating though is that power is not guaranteed in a system where one is required to toe the line in which power is almost equally distributed. To be fixated on whether or not Persaud was persuaded to support the NCM would be to miss what happened during that unforgettable night by miles. In a one-seat majority government, the ball could and did bounce in different directions, which the Coalition picked up on after the fact that it had indeed fallen.

My aim is to show how the Coalition has since navigated itself through the contours of Guyana politics since 2018 drawing upon some things that were said and printed in the media about how the Coalition failed to recognise that the Charrandas bombshell was coming like a hurricane. What I am about to share I think still bothers the Coalition, and its sluggish attitude, until recently, as an opposition, might very well be directly related to the No Confidence Vote (NCV).

I do receive reports on social media, and, of course, read the dailies on Guyana as they stream onto my iPhone. Some commentaries and views are all over the place, detouring in different directions, but what was said and printed have informed and convinced me that the Charrandas episode has found a sacred place in the Coalition. I provide three of many observations that led me to believe that PNC is still reeling from the NCV.

The first observation was that Forbes Burnham would not have allowed the NCM because he, Burnham, was so politically astute he would have detected the NCM coming before it happened. When I heard this my mind jumped to the dictatorial tendencies of that man but that was not the point. Burnham would have recognised in a one-seat majority the pressing priority would have been to bring in more Parliamentary members from the opposition into the Coalition. This was an interesting point since Burnham was actually good at bringing Indians from the opposition into the PNC.

How he would have done so might not have complemented political brinkmanship, but he would have gotten the job done. It is this brinkmanship that the older heads in PNC continue to use as a pressure weapon against David Granger. The latter failed to deliver the needed admirable leadership skills of his former party leader to Guyana because his admiration of Burnham was more abstractive than practical, something his PNC members/followers recognised much later but chose not to voice their opinion openly. It turned out to be a costly mistake since PPP capitalised on Granger’s abstractive weakness as a vision for Guyana.

The second observation that worth discussing is that some in the Coalition have looked back and questioned why the NCM even got out of the National Assembly given that in the Coalition there were at least six lawyers. The argument is that the lawyers in the Coalition should have blocked, or at least, stalled the NCM before it got out of the National Assembly. The motive was to frustrate the process by presenting various arguments to buy time, and when that option was exhausted, move onto the Guyanese and Caribbean Court of Justice. Why was this motive not pursued can only be answered by examining the mental capacity of the lawyers in the Coalition. Your guess is as good as mine.

The third observation underscores the continued narrative that Charrandas showed no signs that he would support the NCM, and so, the cats in the Coalition had no reason to suspect and think otherwise. Here is the question for the Coalition. Would a bank robber inform the police and public that he intends to rob the bank on Friday morning at 9:00 am, sharp? These above unanswered questions emanating from the NCM continue to haunt the Coalition, which have caused much suspicion towards the Indian element in the Coalition and much finger pointing while the PPP has moved on (lomarsh.roopnarine@jsums.edu).