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And they’re off!!
The Presidential Sweepstakes have been five years in the making. It leads to the largest prize in Guyana: occupancy of one of the most powerful offices in the world (if we go by the powers and immunities sanctioned constitutionally).
Not surprisingly the competition has perennially generated tremendous interest from the competitors for that prize – even though most profess that they would trim its extravagances rather energetically once they secure it. The voters, on the other hand, are somewhat more volatile – some years they become worked up into a frenzy while in others, they are somewhat blasé.
This year, while it appears to be a case of the latter, this afternoon’s rally by the PPP/C should give us a clearer picture of voter interest. Berbice is a traditional base of the PPP and Albion is a sugar-worker stronghold that has traditionally poured out in numbers to support them. However in the last elections (2006) the actual numbers that turned out to vote fell precipitously and with the shakedown in the sugar industry, many observers believe the PPP will have to pull out all the stops to prevent a continued or even accelerated downward slide.
But if the recent ‘Appreciation Day’ for the departing President Jagdeo is anything to go by, the PPP seems more that ready and capable of pulling out those stops. By any measure, that event demonstrated the power of incumbency. The combination of state largess (actual or anticipated) plus a swollen war chest from domestic and foreign businessmen lining up to make their contributions produced a potent mobilization machinery.
The National Stadium at Providence was packed to capacity and this afternoon the PPP expects the Albion Cricket ground to be in the same condition because the same techniques will be deployed.
The old PPP laboriously constructed party groups that had been found in every village and ward in the pre-1992 era seems to have fallen by the wayside. These party stalwarts were the workhorses that had literally brought out the votes on Election Day.
The PPP has gradually moved after 1992 towards the PNC’s technique of combining the political rally with a ‘bubble session’ to bring out the supporters and simultaneously whip up their voting enthusiasm. For Appreciation Day, there were buses and trucks to ferry the supporters to the site and sound systems to keep them pumped up.
What should give the PPP much comfort is the comparative disarray of their opposition. The PNC – which has now chosen to ‘merge’ with the minuscule WPA ,GAP and some individuals into APNU (A Partnership For national Unity) – stands a chance of losing (in the vernacular) ‘corn and husk’ since its traditional constituency is largely unaware of the new entity and what exactly it stands for.
Once the grouping hits the hustings and explain that it intends to include the PPP into the government if it were to win the elections, it might have to give quite a bit more explaining.
At this point, when the PPP is about to leave the gate, APNU still has not been able to name its Prime Ministerial candidate. It has it work cut out – especially since it announced that it will have to raise US$6 million for the campaign.
And then we arrive at the last rated horse in the sweepstakes – the AFC. While the party’s marketing strategy in 2006 to brand itself as the ‘multiracial’ alternative to the two old warhorses worked to give the new kids on the block some credibility, the intervening five years have seen the sheen rubbed off to a large extent.
Early missteps with bypassing one candidate for another of a different ethnicity erupted nastily in the public domain to put a dent on their major claim to fame: a workable multiethnic approach.
A seeming hesitation late in the day to implement the rotating ethnic leadership that was supposed to be the acme of their multiethnic credentials has further dented its credibility. It faces a challenge to rebuild its brand while the main horse is already out of the gates.
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