If the PPP wins, opposition groups should ponder their future

Mar 30, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

At the time of writing, I haven’t done any research on the topic of changing governments through the electoral process around the world since 1992. I follow world politics closely so I am going to opine that since the PPP came to power all governments around the world have changed hands in a free, electoral process.
I am not including some controversial elections in Zimbabwe, Singapore, Malaysia, Belarus and other similar polities.
In fair electoral competition for power, there have been changes in the guards in all CARICOM states and other democratic systems since 1992, with the possible exception of Guyana.
The PPP won four campaigns. Only two could be classified as logical. The other two showed how quixotic an affair, elections could be.
In 1992, there was no reason why the PPP should have beaten the WPA. In its 30 years as an opposition organization, the PPP was a failure, did deals with the dictatorial PNC government and remained a communist party under Jagan.
In 2006, after 14 years in power, the PPP did not transform the political culture, did not restructure the fundamental institutions of power, did not elevate the earnings of a majority of the working people, hardly made a dent into poverty alleviation, engaged in widespread sexual misconduct, looted the Treasury, and crime and migration reached fever pitch levels.
Yet it won the election in that year. The country is on the verge of another general poll. This time it is not possible for the PPP to achieve a victory for the simple reason that human beings do not vote so outrageously.
It can only happen in one type of situation, and it is relevant here to quote the American scholar, Fareed Zakaria. In his work on the inherent dilemmas of free elections, Zakaria quotes the world famous expert on ethnically divided countries Donald Horowitz as saying; “What is the point of holding elections if all they do in the end is to substitute a Bemba-dominated regime for a Nyanja regime in Zambia, the two equally narrow, or a southern regime for a northern one in Benin, neither incorporating the other half of the state,” (end of quote)
Zakaria’s work on the inherent limitations of fair elections in a sharply, ethnically divided society makes for learned reading. Zakaria’s main point is that openly fair elections can produce victories for fascists and racists.
Immediately Guyana comes to mind. It is outside the scope of a newspaper column to enumerate the perversities, immoralities, venalities of the elected government in Guyana since the 2006 general election. But the list is as long as the Essequibo River.
In normal polities, such a ruling party will not be elected again and would probably be devastated at the end of the voting.
If the PPP should be returned to power this year, there ought to be deep theoretical reflections on the relevance of free elections in Guyana. One outcome is incontrovertible – should the PPP win in 2011, then it cannot lose a poll in the foreseeable future.
At the present juncture, no Caribbean government since Independence came to the region has been as disgraceful, corrupt, unredeemable, uncouth, unlearned and uncultured as the present cabal in Georgetown.
Guyana’s practice of politics by the ruling regime, the exercise of power, the moral, economic and social collapse have never been as terrible as it is at present. In the face of this depravity, for the ruling party to clinch another mandate means that the opposition can never ever win.
No government can sink as low as what we have now. It means, then, that if the PPP returns to government its president can only go up rather than down. He will obviously make attempts at reform. By the time 2016 comes around, he would have done better than his predecessor.
If when things were horrible in 2011, the PPP didn’t lose, why would it be the loser in the 2016 elections?
The implications of another PPP crown this year are frightening for the opposition parties and other related groups. What kind of politics will these entities engage in from 2011 to 2016? If they couldn’t win in 2006 why would they in 2016?
It would seem that if they do not disband then they will forever operate in the wilderness.
Political parties stay alive in the hope that one day they will be voted into office. The phenomenal example is the Lib-Dems in the UK. In Guyana, should the PPP pull through again, then politics in this land will change beyond recognition.

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If the PPP wins, opposition groups should ponder their future

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