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A fictional construct: The future of the PNC

Nov 30, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

 

 

I asked my editor to give me until 22:00 hours to submit this article. He said impossible. He set 19:00 hours. Normally my column goes into his mail-box by 10:00 hours. For today’s submission, I wanted to wait until 10 PM so I could do an analysis on the winner of the 2011 national elections.
I forgot I was dealing with Guyana, a jinxed land where tragedy is the only grass that grows. I don’t think by Tuesday night, the results would be in. So my focus today is the PNC.
It was the Prime Ministerial candidate of APNU, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, who told demerarawaves.com in an interview that the Civic Component of the PPP is a fictional construct. He is 1000 percent correct. There is no such thing and has never ever been an entity named the Civic Component. It never existed. Dr. Henry Jeffrey subsequently told demerarawaves.com that the Civic Component was never an actual physical organism.
For this analyst, APNU is a fictional construct. The other groups that joined with the PNC had a combined membership that is less than ten persons. It is outside the scope of this column to deal with the election strategy of collapsing the PNC under an umbrella named APNU. It was workable and innovative and it worked.
The PNC would not have got the votes it got if it had gone into the elections as the PNC under Robert Corbin. But for all intent and purpose, APNU is the PNC and the PNC is APNU. It is this writer’s opinion that with the AFC out of the race, he hoped APNU win the 2011 elections. That would have had the support of this commentator.
All analysts in and out of Guyana must ask the question if the PNC can ever win a general election. The PNC lost in 1992, 1997, 2001 and 2006. Will it lose in 2011? I had hoped not. At present there is a vote recount and reports are that the PPP/C won a majority but not big enough to control the parliament.
The PNC has to determine if it wants to remain in politics. Every conceivable reason existed for the PNC to secure the government this time. The Indian demography was thinner in 2011. The 19 years of PPP rule was a horrible balance sheet. The theme of change resonates all over the world. The PPP didn’t put up a candidate that was thrilling and charismatic.
In most countries, with the kind of performance that the PPP put in over almost two decades, either the AFC or the PNC was set to shape the future of Guyana. The AFC will not win. So will the PNC do it? If it can’t, what becomes of its future? Let’s assume that the PPP wins, will the PNC just enter Parliament and for the fifth time since 1992 become the opposition again?
But it is not the PNC as a party that should concern the analysts, it is its constituency. It is another fictional construct to think the PNC does not embody the hopes, wishes and aspirations of African-Guyanese.
As I complete this essay, there is talk in the air that the PPP has won, but without a parliamentary majority. Even if this is so, this still does not come close to what the PNC constituencies want. This writer believes that there has to be a deep reflection by the PNC leadership right at this moment to begin the quest for power-sharing. If it could not win in 2011, maybe it could never ever win. What a tragedy!

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