Why the 1964 PNC-UF coalition cannot ever happen in 2011

Nov 17, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
This corrupt and deceiving version of the PPP/C is up to its shenanigans again. It is trying to scare the living daylights out of its supporters and primarily Indians in an attempt to get total, unlimited, absolute and unchecked power. They are not entitled to this kind of power. The latest piece of scandalous deceit is comparing the events of 1964 to 2011.
1964 is vastly different from 2011. In 1964, Guyana was a colony under British control, the PPP was a communist party and the British determined how the government was formed. The British and Americans were never going to allow a PPP communist government to form another Cuba in an independent Guyana. It was never going to happen. The British and Americans decided who was going to get power after the 1964 election. It was not the PPP. They were going to put in their PNC and UF puppets ahead of the PPP communist puppet and nobody could do a thing about it.
It was that simple and that was the reality in colonial Guyana. The PNC and the UF had no say in the British and American decision. They simply had to follow rules. After all, they owed the West which spent millions of US dollars in an anti-PPP and anti-communist propaganda during the 1960s. As usual, the PPP’s communist friends spent nothing. So, these small-piece backwater politicians in Guyana in 1964 had no say in what was going to unfold. They either fell on the right or wrong side of history as the power brokers of the world decided it. It was from this environment that the 1964 PNC-UF coalition occurred. An environment where a colony had no say in its own internal political affairs and had to heed the outcome handed to it.
1964 cannot happen in 2011 because it is the Guyanese people who determine their own political fate with their votes, not the British and Americans. The PPP lost power entirely in 1964 when the West gave the PNC-UF coalition the government, the Cabinet, the ability to select ministers and Permanent Secretaries, the power to make appointments and the power to spend money. That cannot happen under the current Burnham-crafted constitution, which the PPP loves.
Burnham’s constitution guarantees that if the PPP wins the most votes but fails to get a majority, it still gets the Presidency, it forms the government, it selects Cabinet, it picks the ministers and Permanent Secretaries, it appoints diplomats, its spends the money and it still wields the largest number of seats in Parliament. Parliamentary majority is the only thing the PPP loses but it still has immense powers.
No one, not the PNC or the AFC alone or combined or even Burnham himself resurrected can take that power away from the PPP, if it gets a minority. The PPP knows the kind of power it gets with a minority government.
Considerable power is not enough for the PPP. It wants all the power to dominate the poor and powerless of this country. It wants everything to give to its friends, family and cronies without accountability, transparency and answerability.
The PPP has been telling its own distorted version of 1964 to its own supporters. The problem was not the coalition. The problem was that the PNC backstabbed the UF in 1968 by kicking it out of the coalition and rigging the elections for 24 years thereafter. The UF found out the PNC was a snake and a charlatan and cannot be trusted.
I want decent-minded and honest PPP supporters to tell me why, if we assume it is possible under the Constitution, would the AFC ever get into bed with the PNC/APNU after it fully knows this PNC history of treachery, backstabbing and cutthroat politics? Does the PPP think people are so incurably stupid to believe that the AFC with all those brilliant minds and warriors like Nagamootoo who fought the PNC tooth and nail will ever make such a downright and egregiously dumb mistake of forming an alliance with the PNC/APNU? Why doesn’t the PPP tell its supporters that the PNC and the AFC cannot get together?
That even if in the most outlandish likelihood this Anancy story happens, the AFC and PNC/APNU can’t do a goddamn thing to or about the PPP’s power except try to curtail the PPP’s excesses using Parliament. That if this Anancy story ‘Baghdad Bob’ Persaud and Bharrat Jagdeo have been telling each other is to ever happen, Ramotar will be President, the PPP still selects Cabinet, the government, the ministers, the diplomats and appointees to various boards and still has control of the spending of the tax dollars. The AFC and the PNC can only get together to check the powers of a minority government PPP, they can’t remove it. They can’t change the government or take away the Presidency or stop the powers of government or the Presidency. They are stuck with the Burnham’s constitution. They can only control and change it. They can play a serious role in ensuring taxpayers’ money is properly spent, erasing corruption, fighting cronyism, passing bills to battle crime, etc.
Frankly, the PNC/APNU and the AFC have no need to form any kind of alliance as there is no power to be gained from it.
When PPP supporters consider these reasons, it is clear that they can freely vote for an alternative such as the AFC with its slate of former PPP legends and youthful leaders who have battled corruption within the PPP. Once PPP supporters know that the PPP will still get the Presidency and government and cannot be ever removed from office without another election, they will freely vote their conscience and vote to change this current cabal.
What that will do is that it will force many of the soup drinkers away from power and we could see a new and youthful PPP minority government in a few years when the changes are complete. My last comment is an instructive one for all Guyanese going to the polls on November 28, 2011. As painful, draconian and sinister that act of the British and Americans in 1964 that altered the course of this country seems, we must not and cannot forget that in their minds and in their hearts, however misguided some may tend to believe they were, they genuinely believed they were doing the right thing for their own people.
In the straits of their souls, communism was a danger to the way of life of their people and the way of life they envisioned for the future generations of their societies. That way of life is now enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of Guyanese who have bravely crossed mighty oceans to find a better life in the West. In looking out for their people, they ended up looking out for our Guyanese people too. Let us not fool ourselves about the possibilities of a Jagan-led PPP communist state in Guyana for Cuba is a stark reminder of the graveyard where failed communist ideological dreams end up. It is time we, the Guyanese people, start looking out for us and for our families and our self-interest for it is only by diving into this deep end of our consciousness that we can make meaningful political change. Once we start looking out for our own selves, our families, our friends, our communities and our neighborhoods rather than failed and corrupt politicians, we can start producing leaders who look out for us and who will willingly indenture themselves to the people, not to the pursuit of Pradoville mansions.
 M. Maxwell

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