ON SECURING THE BALANCE OF POWER AND THE MIDDLE CLASS VOTE

Aug 06, 2011 Peeping Tom

Guyana has traditionally had two major political parties, the PPP and the PNC. At all times since independence either of these two parties has held a majority in the National Assembly. Thus neither of the two parties ever had a need to depend on the support of a third party to deny the other.
When the PNC wanted to pass its laws, it had the majority to do so. The PPP has found itself in a similar advantageous position since 1992. It has not needed the support of any other party because it has a majority.
If the equation is to change and any of the two major parties does not gain a majority, it means that the party in government would have to depend on a third party to counter the opposition of the second.
This is what is meant by a third party holding the balance of power. A third party with the requisite representation balances power relative to the two poles, in our case the PPP and the PNC. Since the PNC is the opposite pole to the PPP, the PNC cannot be said to be holding the balance of power against the PPP. It is another party which does this.
As such, if the AFC is that party, then the AFC can hold the balance of power between the PPP and the PNC, deciding to side with whomever it wants and under what circumstances it will do so.
The PNC cannot hold the balance of power against the PPP since the PNC is the second strongest party in the assembly. The balance of power has to be held by a third party with enough power to either deny the ruling party a majority or to facilitate the opposition denying the government passage of Bills.
As such, there is no such thing as all the opposition parties or any of the opposition parties holding the balance of power. The balance of power resides in those parties that can bridge the level of representation between the ruling party and the main opposition.
With a growing middle class there is a view that a party of the middle class can do this. The AFC is a middle class party and it is not in coalition with any of the two main parties. It is from the middle classes that the AFC draws the bulk of its support.
Sitting in the APNU coalition is the Working Peoples Alliance. The originally leadership of the WPA came primarily from and is today still drawn primarily from the middle class. The fact that the leadership comes from the middle class, admittedly, does not make a party a middle class party. Even the leadership of the PPP can not be considered working class.
The PPP and the PNCR are still mass-based parties even though their leadership is predominantly from the middle classes. These parties have established bases within the popular sectors of the society and the party’s membership is still predominantly drawn from the working class.
The WPA emerged from middle class intellectual origins and it was the middle classes which faced the brunt of Burnham’s mismanagement of the economy. As such that class ran into the WPA. The party did, however, enjoy significant working class support and thousands of ordinary Guyanese rallied to its side, but at its core, the party’s membership was concentrated around a middle class base.
After Burnham unleashed his terror on the party, Rodney began a process of reorganizing the party for the struggles ahead. His assassination interrupted those plans and threw the party in a quandary from which it has never recovered.
After Rodney’s death, the middle classes which had begun a slow exit from the party hastened its withdrawal. The WPA has never recovered. It could not recover because the leadership could not organize the party into a mass-based party following the death of Rodney.
The WPA’s decline has continued uninterrupted. It has never had a second coming. It is now essentially, and quite regrettably, a party of leaders, without substantial mass-based membership, and, as the past elections have shown, without any popular support in Guyana. For all intents and purposes, the WPA has lost the middle class support that it once enjoyed and that support has gone to the AFC. That is the harsh but raw truth.
Another truth is that it is not always translucently clear when the sun rises over the Pakaraimas in the mornings. Those familiar with the geography of that area will allow for a fair bit of mist which always clouds one‘s vision of the peaks.

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