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The political divide

Apr 02, 2016 Editorial, Features / Columnists

The local media houses are not known for conducting surveys. For one there are not many with the capability to prepare the surveys. Having found someone who could do that then there is the task of finding people to conduct the surveys and another group to analyse the findings.
It is not that there are no agencies that do surveys. For example the Bureau of Statistics conducts population surveys and analyse the data. That entity can tell how many people are employed in the public service, how many are self-employed, how many households exist in Guyana, the ethnic composition of the country and just about everything one needs to know about the country and its people.
One may argue that the newspapers in Guyana could contract out surveys to determine their popularity or what they need to do in either to maintain or increase their readership. But every so often the newspapers, either wittingly or unwittingly, would do something that would reveal the extent of their popularity.
Each day the various newspapers would tally their print and their distribution. In cases where there are returns then the newspaper would have to wait until these returns are submitted before actually assessing the extent of the publication for that day.
There are times when the newspapers would get calls ahead of time because of something sensational that happened before the actual print. But there are things that would spark a mad rush for the newspaper.
On April Fools’ Day, Kaieteur News ran a story that was so sensational that the telephone lines between Guyana and numerous other countries, the various social media, the local telephone lines and of course the spit press went into high gear.
In any country, such a story would have caused a shrug at best or a raised eyebrow at worst. People expect changes in the political landscape. However, this story actually revealed how divided the local landscape is. It read that former President Donald Ramotar had joined the government and that other members of the People’s Progressive Party had been absorbed in the ranks, one of them being the General Secretary of the PPP, Clement Rohee.
All day people simply called each other and started discussions. There was talk of angry people mouthing off in minibuses and other forms of public transport as they made their way to work. People kept calling the newspapers to confirm the veracity of the news report.
We would suppose that former President Donald Ramotar would have received the most telephone calls to be followed by his party headquarters. These calls would most likely have come from people who would have not only have been shocked but disappointed that the move by a man who once held the highest position on the PPP, a man who once occupied the highest office in the land by way of the PPP and a man who up until a few weeks ago, was urging his party members and supporters to stand firm against the government, would not have gone to join the very government.
At the same time, there were supporters of the government who would have been incensed that the coalition, knowing what it suffered at the hands of the government, would now seek to go to bed with the people it once saw as its oppressors. Both the PPP and the coalition parties have their diehard supporters and from the reaction, none wants anything to do with the other.
What started out as a harmless joke by Kaieteur News has exposed the political chasm in Guyana. One can safely conclude that all the uttering about a national front government or David Granger’s talk about a government of national unity would fly no better that a bumblebee on one wing.
Suffice it to say that the news report about Donald Ramotar and Clement Rohee joining the coalition has been the most read article in yesterday’s issue; it has also been the April Fools’ joke to take root more deeply than any before it.

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