The question to be asked

Oct 14, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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I attended the open forum for public participation sponsored by the WPA a few weeks back. The purpose was to get a feedback from the public on a grand coalition, among all opposition parties, to contest the forthcoming elections.
The criticism of the AFC’s attitude of exclusion of the PNC was vociferous. The two WPA executives that led the charge were Drs. Clive Thomas and David Hinds. Undoubtedly these are two Guyanese intellectuals that can debate any and perhaps every dimension of Guyanese political sociology.
On this occasion, one of the seminal questions were not asked and therefore not answered. But even if there wasn’t a performance from the floor, Messrs.
Hinds and Thomas should have at least attempted an outline. That question is; does the AFC see a PNC inclusion as preventing a substantial cross-over of PPP voters, read that to mean East Indian rural folks?
AFC leaders would answer yes. It is for others to confront the AFC on that possibility. So far no one has taken up the challenge.
Why this cry for an over arching coalition? Two reasons exist. One is fundamental to anti-dictatorship politics. The other is a situational factor. There can hardly be any debate about it; we are in the throes of an irrational elected dictatorship in this land.
Space does not permit an elaboration but it is important to note that huge numbers that flock to the Big Lime, stadium bacchanalia, Guyexpo, Jamzone, dinners at Guyana embassies around the world are not going to vote for the PPP because they know it is a dictatorship.
There have to be extremely foolish people in Freedom House and in the Office of the President who think that those hugs and gigantic smiles that President Jagdeo gets from walking through Georgetown will translate into votes. Life is not that simple and one hopes the Freedom House and OP oligarchs are not moronic enough to mistake courtesy for cultural beliefs.
In anti-dictatorship movements, the unquestionable direction is for opposition forces to join in solidarity, especially in national elections. It was natural then for the WPA and others to see a unifying coalition as a possibility of electoral victory.
Strengthening this fundamental direction are recent events in the UK and Trinidad where coalitions have taken place moreso in our neighbour Trinidad. I am disappointed that there are opposition figures in Guyana that have made an extrapolation from the recent Trinidad election phenomenon. Guyana has tremendous sociological and political differences with the Caribbean island politics. It is dangerous to see encouraging resemblances. Again space does not permit lengthy discourse but suffice it to say that the Guyana opposition platforms will not succeed in replicating the Trinidad scenario.
I will briefly list three political/sociological motifs that are completely, (emphasis on the word, completely) absent in Guyana.
One is there is only superficial bitterness among ethnic groups in Trinidad and the reason for this surface existence is because there have never been one internecine conflict among them.
Secondly, the East Indian controlled state in Trinidad never had and will never have an interest in devastating the wider public sector as we see here in Guyana. This writer has first hand knowledge of how deliberate anti-nationalist fervour went into the destruction of UG. This writer believes most inflexibly that the location of the Berbice Bridge was determined by tribal instincts and political cunning and not engineering science.
The object was to diminish the economy of New Amsterdam.
What it means in Trinidad, then, is that there is yet to be born, the fear among Afro-Trinidadians that an East Indian Government will marginalize the economy of Afro-Trinidadians. A UNC Government will not do that.
It must be mentioned too that Trinidadian Indians tend to be more nationalistic than their counter-parts in Guyana. Indians flock to carnival in prodigious numbers.
Try getting Guyanese Indians to “Mash” down. Conversely an Afro-Trinidad Government will not seek to miniaturize Indian capitalism in Trinidad.
Thirdly, there is a large African middle class and a small Indian intellectual class in Trinidad that are not obsessed with race-voting. Indians crossed over to Manning in marginal constituencies when there was another election after the famous tie.
And in the recent poll, Africans voted against Manning to give the UNC victory. These positive “vibes” do not exist in Guyana and therefore election strategies in this land have to be based and shaped on Guyanese realities.
Mr. David Granger has to understand those particularities that set us apart from the rest of CARICOM. The AFC may have already done its home-work.

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