IT IS THE PARTIES THAT MATTER!

Oct 30, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Reality will eventually step in. All of the main political parties are at present basking in the trophies that they have captured in the game of psychological warfare being practiced.
In this game, all of the parties have been successful in wooing over to their camps, individuals who were in the past either associated or felt to be associated with their political rivals. At the same time, some individuals have come forward and endorsed political parties.
In the end, no individual is bigger than his or her party and this reality will soon become manifest. No matter who jumps ship at this time, that person does not take over the same mass popularity than when he or she was associated with the party that made him or her. It is the party that makes the individual.
There have been exceptions of course to this rule, but history also teaches that those exceptions do not recur regularly, and Guyana has had the fortune – luckier than most nations – of producing three highly charismatic figures in a short period of time. They were Cheddi Jagan, dashing and radical; Forbes Burnham, cunning, charming and honey-tongued; and Walter Rodney who was simply mesmerizing. Ravi Dev almost made the cut, but he became a victim of the polarized political culture that exists in the country. Guyana would be lucky if within the next twenty years it produces leaders of this stock. They simply do not come along every day.
It is a healthy political development to witness individuals breaking with political stereotypes. It is good to see persons being daring enough to cross political lines and identify with leaders and parties whom they believe have good policies or in which they can make a useful political contribution. These individuals should be allowed the liberty to do so. It is their choice and that choice has to be respected.
However, the reality of Guyana is that the parties are always more powerful than the individual and in the end it is the parties that matter. None of those that have crossed- and this is said with the greatest respect for everyone’s political talents and potential – are going to have the same political impact in their new camps than they would have had in their old political homes.
Unless you are of that political mould of the great charismatic leaders that this country has produced or unless you are a product of the historical circumstances that throw up great leaders, you are not likely to reproduce any significant impact after you have left one party for the other. This is the reality and is attributable to unforgiving nature of Guyanese politics, in which those who leave the original political parties with which they were associated for another, find themselves being unfairly attacked and maligned.
After the 1992 elections, Desmond Hoyte of the PNC sidelined Hamilton Green because he felt that Green represented a political threat to him. Green was unceremoniously expelled and was forced to form his own political party. He did very well in the local government elections in 1993, feeding off the dissatisfaction within the PNC that Hoyte had “sold-out” his party and was responsible for the party’s loss at the 1992 elections. Green’s success was however short lived, because in the 1997 elections, his party was not able to replicate the success that it did after the dissatisfaction of 1992 and did not even win a seat – the support that he had went right back to the PNC.
Bharrat Jagdeo cannot be considered a charismatic leader but he is highly popular. But when he leaves the presidency that popularity will wilt. Outside of the presidency and outside of his party, he will be just another ordinary leader.
This year’s elections will prove that it is the parties that matter. Therefore, all those parties who are presently smarting from the losses they feel have resulted from persons jumping ship, should not worry. In the final analysis it is the parties that matter the most.
So it has been in Guyana and so it will be for a long time to come.

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IT IS THE PARTIES THAT MATTER!

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