A ONE-SEAT MAJORITY

Jan 22, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The 2011 general elections were historic in that for the first time since 1964, one of the contesting parties failed to gain a majority of seats in the parliament. But this historic outcome occurred against the backdrop of an even more troubling development: ethnic polarization at the polls.
So far, only the Alliance for Change and Ravi Dev have highlighted the acute polarization of the results of the 2011 elections. While the AFC itself got seven seats, it is instructive as to where those votes came from.
The polarized nature of the voting is by far the most worrying development that has emerged from last year’s elections.
Ethnic polarization is, of course, not new to Guyana. It must be recalled that in 1992, after years of PNC mismanagement and incompetence and after the nation’s citizens had been reduced to paupers, the vote was polarized and third parties such as the WPA were routed in those elections.
The WPA had hoped that it would have reduced the PNC to a 10% party, but it was clear that ethnic insecurity drove voters back to their traditional camps.
The outcome of the 2011 elections has given the combined opposition a majority in the National Assembly. But they must deflate themselves from any euphoria, because this majority does not signal a major victory. It is only a one-seat majority, a very tenuous situation which can be easily reversed if there are snap elections.
The more important significance of the elections is the persistence of a polarized electorate. This is something that even the ruling party seems to be ignoring, at least judging from its public pronouncements.
At the level of the leadership of the party, the PPP has done its analysis, and it has announced that the party suffered because of incumbency fatigue. This may be so. Indeed, the public had become tired of seeing the same old faces and hearing the same old names, week after week, day in day out.
For years prior to the elections, the state-owned newscasts invariably began with “President Jagdeo said” this and “President Jagdeo did” that. If it was not President Jagdeo’s picture and name, it was that of the Minister of Agriculture or the Minister of Housing. People got tired of all of that. So it was not so much as incumbency fatigue as it was personality fatigue. The citizens were kept bombarded with these three individuals and quite honestly they were tired of it.
Incumbency fatigue can be easily counteracted. Burnham did it by constantly shuffling around people and constantly bringing in new faces.
But incumbency fatigue does not explain fully the PPP’s failure to gain that additional 1.5% of the votes. There was also the factor of corruption, which had become a monster within the society, and which many saw as emanating in secret, and often not so secret, deals.
The people saw how the assets of the state were being taken and handed to friends of the administration. They also saw how the policies were crafted in the name of development, but which were primarily intended to fatten a small oligarchic group.
The people are not stupid. They know that the PPP did more for this country than any other political party. They know that Guyana is better off today than it ever was in its history. They know that it was President Jagdeo who turned this country around and rescued the economy.
But the people saw beyond that. They saw the skullduggery that was taking place. They saw little boys tinkering with the public treasury as if they were playing monopoly.
When these same people went to the little Gods in public office, they were treated like dirt. They were shouted upon and treated as if they were nothing.
At one stage during the PPP rule, there was a minister who used to like to shout at poor people as if they were her school kids.
When the people tried to access basic services, they were forced to wait long hours.
The traffic police in this country have turned out to be most oppressive forces. And yet the laws were amended to increase the fines, thus allowing some corrupt cops to be judge and jury on the roads, extorting sums from poor drivers. All it took was one stop from a corrupt traffic cop and a man’s entire day’s pay went in bribes. Nothing was being done about these things.
And so despite the track-record of the PPP, the supporters stayed away and this handed a one-seat majority to the combined opposition.
It is however also true that the PPP lost the elections because of over-confidence. It was so certain that its record would have won it a landslide majority that many of its supporters did not bother to go out and vote.
But the factor that the PPP ignored the most, and the one that was again pronounced in the 2011 elections, was ethnic insecurity. Development has not washed it away. It remains, and the PPP has to deal with it.
The opposition also has to deal with it, because the reality is that APNU got its best possible voter turnout and still lost the elections, and lost it by close to nine percentage points.

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