No to Hollow Men

Jun 27, 2010 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev

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As the talks of coalitions and coalition-building fill the newspapers and the airwaves, I realise with a start that five years have elapsed. Five years, that is, after the last round of opposition coalition talks preceding the 2006 elections petered out. It would appear that we might have the elements of an incipient tradition here: elections loom in the horizon and the opposition parties throw themselves into a frenzy of meetings, conclaves, retreats, tête-à-têtes, get-togethers (public, private or secret) ostensibly to whip themselves into a “unified opposition”.
Now, in and of itself, this exercise ought not be dismissed out of hand. As an old friend of mine once put it (as the title of his TV show, mind you) “The big question is, ‘Why?’” As a matter of fact, on the last go-around of “coalition building” I, on behalf of ROAR (such as it had become) was quite in the thick of things. And let me tell you, things did get quite thick on more than one occasion! One interesting aspect of these “opposition unity” meetings is that the PNC was never present, so we are talking about a host of micro-parties – GAP and WPA (which had gone into the 2001 elections as a coalition and had garnered two seats), ROAR with one seat and a host of entities that were dominated by one or more individuals – Dr. Joey Jagan with Unity Party, Peter Ramsaroop with Vision Guyana etc. The AFC was in its formative stage and its principals-to-be did not remain engaged for long.
The not-to-be-mentioned elephant in the room quickly brought the big question of “Why?” to the fore. Even with some massive egos aboard, no leader of the micro-parties thought that either singly or together they could win the elections – even with a plurality to secure the Presidency. (This was to change after the AFC was launched, had a poll conducted by the eponymously named Dick Morris, and announced they could take it all. At the time, I remember thinking that somebody was smoking something – something very strong, probably that good Colombian stuff.)
Early on (for instance even when Jimmy Carter was involved – he reported it on his web site) we had floated the notion of a “Centre Force”. This accepted that the PPP and PNC – with their ethnically loyal cores – would not just disappear, or roll over and play dead, as some are now asking of the PNC. The next best thing, we felt, was for the combined smaller parties to try to capture enough votes from each bloc to deny either behemoth an absolute majority – and to hold a “balance of power” in the Centre, in Parliament. In order to pass bills –including those for spending – we felt that the government of the day would be forced to negotiate and compromise either with the Centre Force or the other opposition party – which under the demographics then we felt would be the PNC.
Several other members of the micro-party unity talks felt otherwise. Joey Jagan for one always opined that a “Big Tent” coalition with the PNC was the way to go. (For what it is worth, Joey, in my estimation, invariably tells it as he sees it, and contrary to what many on the outside seem to believe, often does so with very cogent reasoning.) With the PNC’s (up to then automatic) 42% and the micro-parties’ 5%, there would only be the need for another 4% and – voila! – the Government of National Unity could then be forged. (While the PNC was never at the talks, I must report that at every Joint Parliamentary Opposition parties where the topic arose, Mr Robert Corbin would assert in no uncertain terms that, “There can be no Government of National Unity without the PPP!”)
We disagreed with “Big Tent” for two reasons. Firstly, we felt that the deep-seated aversion to the PNC in huge swaths of the Guyanese populace would far outweigh whatever attractions the coalition could present – and the political process would not be advanced. Secondly, and most importantly, we believed that to join forces with one or the other of the major parties ahead of the predictably polarising elections would be to deepen our historic ethnic divisions. Agreement on these points was the major impetus for the GAP-ROAR coalition. Even though all members rejected a coalition of convenience (merely to remove the PPP from government) and agreed to a coalition of commitment (six guiding core principle had been accepted and a national program for Guyana was being crafted) the lack of a clear agreement on the Big Tent proposal was, in my estimation, the reason the micro-parties coalition ended with a whimper.
In the latest manifestation of the coalition imperative, on the other hand, there have been massive changes in several premises of the old analyses. The most significant one has been the continued inexorable diminution of the Indian percentage of the population. As I have been emphasising over the last couple of years, there are now no reflexive “built-in” majorities in Guyana: the key is now on the mobilisation capabilities of the competing entities, a variable completely within the control of the entity. The PNC’s adamant refusal to take to the streets over the last few years – against fervent appeals from some quarters – has gone some way in rehabilitating its negative image in the Indian community. Mr Corbin’s unequivocal declaration that he will be not be the Presidential Candidate of the PNC – either singly or in coalition with other parties and groups – and that such a candidate can come even from outside the PNC should go much further in making the PNC acceptable to those outside is traditional base. There is now, very positively, no coyness over possible coalition with the PNC.
For the survival of Guyana as a peaceful democratic polity, an opposition conglomeration that is seen as capable of replacing the incumbent government through the ballot boxes is a sine qua non. The opposition should not, like TS Eliot’s “Hollow Men” become paralysed by their fears, so that :
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

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