Any synthetic third force/coalition not a panacea for Guyana

Jun 20, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
“Some make-believe third force has become the new fad and foible in Guyana’s politics.”
I made this remark in 2005 at a time when a scramble for initiating alliances became trendy, and the Alliance for Change (AFC) was born. A year or so later then, the initial stir of the AFC as some third force remained a stir, a fad, and a foible.
Some people then falsely presented the AFC as Guyana’s answer for a third force in politics. This third force did not happen in 2006, and it is not happening now.
Nonetheless, the AFC now believes it is doing the right thing for Guyanese; currently initiating a flurry of activities in the name of coalition building, as we approach the threshold of another national election.
Perhaps, it sees this coalition formation as the new third force in politics, thereby abandoning its supporters’ emotive interest and integrity in the AFC as that third force.
The question people must ask is this: Why did the AFC not try its hand at coalition building long before the threshold of the 2011 national election?
We always see attempts at coalition building just around the threshold of national elections, and not prior to any electoral threshold; this modus operandi sounds opportunistic.
The Times of India in 2005 noted that the third force concept is much abused; generally promoted as an electoral emergency or out of battered egos; very unlikely to alter the body politics; sometimes the alliances are a hodgepodge of opportunistic interests; and only a grassroots foundation can make it sustainable.
The advent of new political parties or coalitions does not necessarily translate into a third way or third force. Guyana has no third force even today.
What is it that necessitates a third force? Any entity has the full constitutional right to be a third or fourth force in politics.
That is not the issue. People need to examine the motives for a third force and the ‘behind-the-scenes’ players. People need to recall the foreign intrigue and interference in Guyana’s politics in the early 1960s. Foreign intervention via the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the 1960s influenced the formation of proxy groups that included opposition political parties, the Trade Union Council, the Church, among others, to execute its violent and inhuman operations, all for the sake of removing the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and installing the People’s National Congress (PNC). Foreign intrigue scored a success in the 1960s, but the country paid a high price.
Look at what this foreign interference gave us – first a PNC-UF Coalition and then a PNC dictatorship.
I do not want to dabble here with statistics on the Government’s performance since 1992.
The people will make their own judgment, a judgment that also will consider the persistent orchestrated opposition’s mayhem after each election from 1992 through 2001. This bedlam took its toll on the economy and the society. People must know about this. And Guyana is better off today than it was in 1992.
Foreign intervention is useful only when it is non-political. And so Guyanese will need to keep a watchful eye on the prime mover and rhetoric of any third force in the form of parties or coalitions in this country.
Foreign intrigue and foreign intervention in local politics need local partners to execute operations. These native partners, historically, constituted the third and fourth force that left Guyana in a sorry state.
The third and possibly the fourth force of the 1960s miserably failed because of their opportunistic interests. These opportunistic maneuverings may be no different today.
We must not be gullible to the view that any third force, be it a new party or coalition, is a panacea for Guyana. Formation of a new party/coalition in itself is not a third force and a panacea for Guyana; we have to assess whether it is synthetic.
An authentic party/coalition becomes a third force in Guyana, when among other things, it wins over some significant grassroots support, it has moderate leaders, it has leaders willing to negotiate their issues of policy and governance, it demonstrates its exceptionality to the main political alternatives, and it is not a charade of collective opportunism. The people must do some scrutiny of any new ‘being’ (new party/coalition) in Guyana’s politics to review its authenticity on the basis of the aforementioned criteria. If a new being, party or coalition, does not meet these criteria, then it is of a synthetic nature.
Prem Misir

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