Scotland in the UK; Georgetown in Guyana

Apr 12, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The Government of Scotland will have a referendum in 2014 to determine if the Scottish people want to have a sovereign Scotland. Decades ago, there was such a vote in Quebec to determine if that French province should leave the Canadian federation. The referendum’s yes vote lost by two percent
Guyana’s historical evolution and political culture are vastly different from the UK’s and Canada’s so there certainly will be no cry for separation from any region or ethnic group in this country. But in Guyana, the Westminster system exists in a bizarre and convoluted form. How long it will survive will depend on a party named the People’s National Congress (as distinct from APNU).
In Guyana, there are ten regions, the largest being Region Four. Since 1992, the ruling party has won a majority of votes in every national and regional election but has never won the plurality in Region Four and has never acquired a majority of ballots in the whole of the capital city. Yet the Westminster system gives the central government complete dominance over Region Four and the ruling party exerts a bruising hegemony over the capital city.
After five victories for the ruling party and a consistent pattern of its budgetary domination of Region Four and the Georgetown City Council, the analyst is bound to inquire about the future of the PNC. I’m making a distinction here between the PNC and APNU; the latter is a coalition in which the PNC is the backbone. If the alliance falls apart, there will still be the fulcrum which is the PNC, the point being APNU may come and go but the PNC will be there as a national institution.
It would appear that changing demographics in Guyana could propel the PNC to an election victory in the future. All political observers point to a statistical reality in Guyana in that the East Indian number has decreased to the point where that number is exceeded by the combination of other ethnic groups.
But why talk about the future when the possibility existed in the 2011 campaign that the PNC could have clinched victory if 130,000 registrants did not stay away.
Leave out those who migrated, it still leaves you with a whopping percentage of absentees. My point on this page months before the election campaign began, was that a majority of those no-show registrants would be PNC supporters. What has caused them to stay away? There are many factors but two needs to be highlighted. Both of them are strongly intertwined. I start with the hackneyed explanation that is really common place in Guyana and that is, the PNC is no longer a radically inspired opposition movement.
There is no need to dwell on this situation. It is a topic that has been exhausted. The variables employed to analyse this enigma are numerous and space will not allow for it. Let us move to the more potent analysis – the five losses of the PNC. Is it possible that a sizeable group of persons abstained because they saw their party as losing again and foresee that this will be the pattern in the future?
It is really a terrible crisis facing the PNC that should scare them in another election. Whereas in every CARICOM country there has been changes in ruling parties the past ten years, Guyana is the exception. The PPP has won the Executive office the past five polls. The next election may be worse for the PNC. After five defeats, that 130,000 figure may jump higher.
It is possible that PNC voters will say that if their party could not have won in 2011 where its chances were greatest, could it ever win. And thus they will not go out to vote or may still be so annoyed with the PPP that they may move en masse to the AFC? Whatever scenario it is – abstention or movement towards the AFC – the PNC stands to lose big time at the next poll unless it starts to improvise.
Earlier I said the two factors are intertwined. Perceiving their party to be dormant, maybe PNC voters don’t go out in prodigious numbers on polling day. If the PNC becomes radical again, it is possible that the hopes of their constituencies will rise? And they could see their party winning an election thus a colossal turn out in the next election.
Then there is the David Hinds adumbration. He posits that the PNC’s only chance of survival depends on the struggle for inclusive governance or power-sharing. Can the PNC survive after a sixth loss in 2016?

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