The campaign season that came and went

Nov 28, 2011 News

By Leon Suseran

INTRODUCTION
Perhaps one of the most interesting elections campaign season has just come to an end. After nearly two months of campaigning, the political parties can now breathe a sigh of relief and catch up on their sleep. Not really though. The next few days are going to be real nailbiting for the three major political parties, namely the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C), Alliance for Change (AFC) and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU). I do suppose though that the politicians from these parties have all truly, in some way or another, helped the Guyanese electorate to think a little clearer and be a bit more educated on the issues. It is only hoped that now that the campaigns are over, the voters out there have decided on a party of their choice that will lead Guyana through the next five years. The campaign season had its ups and downs; it was clean and dirty; exciting and boring, you name it. The three main parties went out of their usual ways during this campaign, utilizing any and every resource, to make sure that they reached every Guyanese voter out there.

DEVELOPMENT
The Television advertisements were very interesting. They all added that flare to the usual line up of boring, redundant, repeated and old television advertisements many Guyanese have been accustomed to over the years. All of the parties used their creativity and appealed to every section of the society with these advertisements. The PPP/C was the party whose ads dominated radio and TV, even the internet. The chances were very high that you’d be channel surfing and a PPP/C ad was being aired. It would’ve also appeared that they were airing non- stop on the National Communications Network (NCN). Whenever an opposition ad was aired (which was a rare occurrence), it would immediately be followed by a PPP/C ad.
But all of the ads had a high degree of creativity. I admired the newspaper advertisements. To me, APNU won largely because of its salient attacks and criticisms of the current administration. Their full- page pull out of their Manifesto gave every Guyanese an opportunity to read what plans they have, should they get into government. The AFC came in second with the newspaper ads. Their Report Card ad on Friday was a very good demonstration of the party’s efforts to critically analyze the issues and carefully give an assessment, or as it were, a grade.
The PPP/C’s newspaper ads were more frequent and dominated than any other political party, and they, too succeeded to make the other parties look bad and debunked their (the other parties) policies very well.
Then the internet was used to campaign. Facebook was a major tool used by all of the major political parties to rake voters into their respective folds. There were lively discussions, especially on the PPP/C Facebook page, followed by the AFC. I personally followed the comments and remarks, all of which touched very well on the issues. As I covered the various rallies, I too posted pictures and quotes from the various candidates of the rallies on my Facebook page. I tried to be as fair and balanced as possible.
I enjoyed my first time of covering these elections for the Kaieteur News. I felt lots of excitement and energy at all of the political rallies and meetings I covered. I was tempted to participate and join the crowd at specific rallies but I remembered that I had to be neutral. All of the rallies and meetings were well attended. The lighting was very good. The crowds were very tolerant of the speakers; people stood for several hours to listen to speech after speech while the speakers had their comfortable seats on the stage. I stood among the crowds and turned on my recorder and enjoyed every moment of the campaigns; well, except the parts when there was the cuss down and a diversion from discussion of the issues. This was when the campaign season went downhill. From the President right down to the opposition speakers, they were all guilty of making negative remarks about each other. Things became very personal and these parties ought to be ashamed of themselves. We have to learn how to be more civil and if our politicians cannot do this, then how do they expect the rest of the nation to pick up this attitude?
Several modern methods were used by all of the parties during their respective campaigns. The AFC used a laser beam that soared across the sky whenever there was a major rally and the light could have been seen from great distances. APNU used a blimp with their logo that was hoisted high up in the sky around the New Amsterdam area. The PPP/C distributed a quantity of party paraphernalia such as caps, t- shirts and haversacks.
And how can we forget the party switching and dance? There were several persons who switched floors during this election campaign, but they all had different reasons and perhaps secret intentions. We can only suppose.

CONCLUSION
More dialogue and debate among the presidential candidates than the so-called debate at the University of Guyana should have taken place. There should have been a live-televised debate; one-on-one with the candidates, although I did see such an interview with Donald Ramotar by Olive Gopaul. It was done by a neutral person, which was good, but these candidates should have allowed themselves to be questioned by the media, especially the TV and newspaper media at press conferences. There should have been town hall-styled meetings whereby the candidates would have come up close with real questions from the ordinary Guyanese out there, and they (the candidates) would have had to find an answer.
What the parties focused on during this election campaign season was just speeches, which became very exhaustive and repetitive as time went by. I found that some speakers kept repeating themselves at the various rallies. Little or no effort too was made to reach out to voters on the other side, or on the fence. Instead, the elections campaigns were pumped up by heavy music, drumming, overdone rhetoric and inciting crowds to chant insultive remarks about other politicians. One party has ended its campaign with a super concert at the Providence Stadium.
Then the politicians were on TV every single night here in Berbice. It was Christmas come early in New Amsterdam on Friday as the politicians from the three main parties were coercing the voters there to vote for them. It was a real frenzy in the town. One wonders if they will be seen again after the elections. And why was there no Media Monitoring Report coverage for Berbice in the MMU’s report?
The just concluded campaign season had a little bit of everything; and will indeed remain one of the most memorable ones in our country’s history. And we shall certainly know which party would reap the benefits of their hard work in the days to come.