My analysis of one year of Coalition power begins

May 19, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The Stabroek News analysis of the first year of Coalition power left out the cruel mistreatment of the Stabroek Market vendors. It is the brute force in the eviction that depresses me. I grounded with the vendors who lay on the road when they went to picket the Office of the President but were stopped.
If they maintain that consciousness until 2020 that they conveyed and displayed, then I think the 2020 elections will be hard to predict.
Only Freudian ethnic preferences could save the APNU-AFC in 2020. I say Freudian because I believe after the performance of the Coalition, they have lost and will lose the admiration and loyalty of their supporters, but the Freudian embrace of race which lies in the subconscious of African Guyanese will rise to the surface and convert itself into ethnic voting.
That is the only way I could see the Coalition getting into the forties in terms of percentage in 2020. But getting to the 51 percent mark will be very, very difficult.
Both sides (PPP and Coalition) will have a die-hard fight on their hand to get 51 percent but it may be harder for the Coalition. Any historian and sociologist will tell you there are deep, psychological and philosophical differences in the personality make up of Africans and Indians in this land. Indians are rustic, introverted, clannish people. Such personality traits have helped the PPP win four successive elections and the plurality of votes in 2011.
Africans on the other hand do not exhibit that kind of Pavlovian loyalty to party. Any historian or political analyst would tell you if he/she is not shameless that Forbes Burnham became psychologically tortured because he never believed that once the PPP’s Indianness existed, his African ramparts could have been penetrated by another party. Walter Rodney’s activism destroyed that belief that Burnham long cherished.
African Guyanese will not in the foreseeable future vote for the PPP but they are quite capable of not voting if they are disappointed with the PNC that they see as the party of Black people.
This is where the 2020 race will be so fascinating. We have four more years to go; if we project into the future things may not be encouraging for the Coalition in 2020. First, unless actions like the removal of the vendors are stopped over the next four years, the Coalition is not going to win in 2020. A caveat is in order before I continue.
There isn’t a citizen on Planet Earth that would not frown on the confusion and dirtiness that characterize the Stabroek Square. It is not the plan to clean the place up that some people are annoyed with. It is the method used to transfer the vendors. Over three hundred of them were given short notice and all their goods forcefully taken away and stored in the open compound of City Hall where rain destroyed these people’s items.
Secondly, unless the AFC can come up with a miracle, it will suffer a formidable haemorrhage of rural Indian support. It is happening already. In all the hometowns of the Indian AFC leaders, it was “licks like peas” in the recent local elections. Most people believe that the AFC used the Joe Harmon controversy to stop its popularity sliding. An electorally denuded AFC will definitely make it hard for the Coalition to go over the 50 percent mark. But here is where the trouble comes in so we come to the third factor.
If the AFC loses its Indian votes that it got in 2011 and 2015, and frustrated Africans stay home, then the Coalition is not only in big trouble but in tsunami waters. This descent could be even more painful based on who is the presidential candidate. I doubt it would be Mr. Granger. Sadly, I think Joe Harmon may not be a crowd pleaser if he gets the slot.
Of course, Mr. Granger could go again at 74 but there is no guarantee he will galvanize a chagrined black population if he runs in 2020 again without five years of a beautiful legacy. He is an honest man but voters will want to see other achievements of Granger by 2020
Fourthly, unfortunately, those who want to see the Coalition do good including this columnist will have to admit that if you take a piece of paper and tick off the leadership in government and its appointees in the public sector, none has transformational capability. This is the first of my evaluation of the first year of the new government but more specific areas will be highlighted in later columns.

1 thoughts on “My analysis of one year of Coalition power begins”

sirenagx May 19, 2016 at 9:41 am

Generally fairly true, however the PPP needs to open itself to new party general conference and elections for party leadership that brings new leadership to inspire all to believe that the party is a better alternative to the coalition. Mr Jadgeo & some others have left a negative image on the populace and will only change with new people.