Latest update January 6th, 2025 4:00 AM
Mar 29, 2012 Letters
DEAR EDITOR,
In 1992 Mr. Hugh Desmond Hoyte attributed his failure to retain the Presidency, in part to overconfidence of PNC supporters. In 2011, Party spokesperson, Mr. Robert Persaud, immediately after the announcement that the PPP/C was returned to power but as a minority government, echoed similar sentiments – overconfidence of supporters leading to a lethargic poll turnout. This opinion was subsequently reiterated by Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo.
My view is that any party leader who has suffered disappointment by a small margin in a national election which did not see a voter turnout of over 85% would be inclined to advance the foregoing reason for such an outcome – particularly if the leadership is convinced that they had done more than enough to significantly move the country forward. This was the case with Mr. Hoyte and Mr. Jagdeo.
Mr. Hoyte’s bold Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) had taken Guyana from the brink of total economic collapse, to generating more than 6% growth in the national economy in 1991. Mr. Clifford Reis, Guyana’s leading captain of industry at the time pronounced after a presidential tour of his company’s operations “If you think the last five years were great…… wait till you experience the next five”.
Mr. Jagdeo’s leadership moved Guyana away from being categorized as a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) and, together with his visionary Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) was in his party’s eyes, a sound case for a renewed mandate to the PPP/C to win the Executive and a majority in the Legislature. One of Guyana’s most illustrious sons, Sir Shridath Ramphal in reference to the LCDS observed “….Bharrat Jagdeo can be proud that he made a difference to the standing of developing countries in the global community”.
So it is understandable that this frailty of the human psyche to rationalize outcomes mainly within the context of one’s achievement while dismissing their competitor’s combative ability could permeate into a groundswell of overconfidence by one’s supporters.
However, I wish to advance the theory that the overconfidence blamed for ushering in a change in the political status quo in 1992, and loss of parliamentary control in 2011 respectively should not only be placed at the feet of the affected parties’ workers and supporters, but is also applicable to the mindset and conduct of their leaders at the time.
In 1992 Mr. Hoyte while on the campaign trail, his party bolstered by support from an awakened private sector that banded themselves into regional and national re-election committees, uttered several confidence-building statements at public rallies: “I can feel the blood of victory coursing through my veins. ” He also stated “The only person who believes Dr. Jagan would win is Sam Hinds”.
Well Mr. Hinds not only served as Guyana’s head of state but has been Prime Minister for almost two decades. So confident was the incumbent party of returning to power in 1992 that, while promoting a rice company in the MMA area, my business partner and I were told by a Senior Government Minister and also by a top presidential advisor in August, 1992 (having obtained the recommendation of the relevant localized committees) to wait until after the October election for final approval to access the cultivation and paddy processing plots. Well we ended up with neither.
Last year in the run-up to national and regional elections, Mr. Jagdeo led the campaign for Mr. Donald Ramotar and the PPP/C. So confident was the belief in their ability to win that it seems little energy was expended on seriously analyzing certain developments that gave impetus to the success of the opposition campaign strategy.
The exuberance of qualified youth and an energized middle class was mislabeled as hooliganism; and the ability of a former military commander to organize, galvanize and apply subtle dosages of psychological operations (PSYOP) to achieve high political office was dismissed as a pipe dream: The political kingdom can only be attained by experienced politicians; Military men could only achieve this with blood on their hands.
And today, some one hundred days into the Ramotar Presidency, trust and cohesion-building are relegated to the back burner. One grouping is assertively applying their wobbly clout of one, while the other is crying foul and backpedaling to the judicial branch for declaration on constitutional issues. According to a media release on March 26, 2012 a section of the opposition declared their intent to “manners the PPP”. The former perceiving this to be in sync with the desire of the latter’s supporters. Well, if this trend of “overconfidence” continues unabated, and the historical political revelations referred to above remain constant for the future, then one can anticipate the likely outcome of our next national polling exercise. But who knows? By that time “an old man at the wheel” may very well play a huge role in our nation experiencing an unexpected twist in our electoral tale!
Derrick Cummings
Jan 06, 2025
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