Opposition Strategies

Dec 19, 2010 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the desirability of the AFC going to the polls next year as part of a unified opposition slate (New Politics or the “same ole same ole?). A friend queried as to how the smaller parties would deal with the inevitable elephant in the negotiating room – meaning the PNC – to reduce suspicions that they are not mere cover for the big, bad wolf. I must confess that this would be no mean feat.
The first point that has to be made is that the PNC is in retreat. Most of its traditional supporters despair of it being returned to power after successive defeats in 1992, 1997, 2001 and 2006. Even though the base of its rival (and doppelganger), PPP, has shrunk in both relative and absolute terms, the PNC has not displayed the verve and creativity to keep its base excited about its chances of taking the reins of government. The AFC’s success in weaning away five seats from that base in 2006 is proof positive of that ennui in PNC’s supporters.
The PNC needs a makeover as much as the smaller, potential partners need the PNC’s reflexive voters – for the critical mass to effectively challenge the PPP, that is. There is the need for a symbiotic relationship among the joint opposition – but only the AFC has the credentials to insist on such a relationship at the negotiation table. If the PNC insists on controlling the potential coalition, then this must be made public: it will precipitate an even greater exodus from that party. On the other hand, the unequivocal rejection of the PNC as a coalition partner by the AFC – especially as championed in the person of Mr Khemraj Ramjattan – has offended many in the African Guyanese base from where they had garnered most of their support in 2006.
I had suggested that Mr Robert Corbin’s insistence on retaining the leadership of the PNC might be a major stumbling block, even though he has performed a yeoman task to trying to alter the negative image of the PNC , whilst holding on to his base. Not an easy balancing act. At the cost of trenchant criticism from traditionalists, he has addressed several areas that are of concern to those outside its traditional constituency.
The PNC has not resorted to street protests for quite some time; it has supported the goal of a Disciplined Services having a nationally representative composition; its incentives to sugar workers in the early nineties are beginning to look positively utopian right now and it has unquestionably jettisoned its cooperative, statist economic ethos. I have heard on more than one occasion during opposition meetings, Mr Corbin declaring that any shared governance model which seeks to exclude the PPP is doomed to failure.
However, with all of that it cannot be gainsaid that Mr Corbin has still not shaken off the reputation as a representative of the discredited “old politics” and his presence in the opposition camp would be a negative factor. Rather than redounding to his credit, his acceptance not to be the presidential candidate for his party has hardened suspicions that he has not weaned himself from the old compulsion to control and that he would be pulling the strings from the wings.
In my short foray into the political hustings, I have discovered that in our extremely polarised (to put it mildly) politics, once a reputation has been created of being intensely partisan for one “side”, it is almost impossible for that person to become representative of “healing” politics. And this is what the leader of the PNC – as a prominent member of a combined opposition in the next elections – would have to be.
If, in fact, Mr Corbin’s presence is the deterrence against the AFC’s membership in the combined opposition – they should make his departure a prerequisite for their participation. The PNC, under the leadership of Mr Corbin, has declared that Guyana needs a “new beginning” and it is up to institutions such as the AFC to indicate the parameters of their vision of that new Guyana. Leadership, we have insisted, will be emblematic of any change that will be acceptable to the people. With the unfortunate passing of Mr Winston Murray, the AFC could do no worse than proposing a presidential candidate from outside the political fraternity – one that is seen as above the fray. In our formulation we envisage the “unity government” that would ensue after the next elections – which must also include the PPP – to be an interim arrangement. One that would be specifically charged with designing a new constitution for Guyana, as was the case in South Africa. The President would be an interim figure like Mr Mandela was.
The other factor that might be inhibiting the AFC from coalition politics is the nature of Guyana’s electoral rules, which demand a pre-electoral coalition if votes are to be aggregated behind one presidential candidate. They could propose, as once did the PPP during the old PCD negotiations, that the parties go separately in the Regional Elections – the bottom half of the ballot paper. This would indicate their relative strength and hopefully serve to indicate their relative popularity for the ensuing elections.
To go into the next elections simply to hope at best to replace the PNC as the major opposition is merely to continue the old, destructive, zero-sum politics.

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