Survival in a zero sum game

Oct 16, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The opposition parties must receive on a daily basis endless pieces of information as to how to shape their politics in confronting the PPP Government for the implementation of just policies and justice for the nation.
As an opinion-maker, this columnist would fall into this category of free consultancy. For example, my advice to the AFC and APNU, not to contest the next general election because, if the PNC (whether as APNU or PNC or any other name) loses for the sixth time, it is unlikely to survive as a political party.
What can APNU tell its supporters? That it must wait until 2021 and it will win then? No voter is so stupid as to vote for a party that lost six times and believes some miracle will occur on the seventh occasion. Our ancient political culture concretized in the 1980 Constitution only allows for zero sum politics. It means that when you lose in a general election you lose totally. If there are readers of this page who believe that the PPP will lose the next election then I say to them the risk is suicidal for the opposition if the PPP wins.
What is the future of the opposition if the PPP wins? The game is a zero sum one. If after losing the Parliament in last year’s national contest, the PPP has not conceded an inch of democratic territory, what makes any human being on Planet Earth think that in 2016, a PPP victory will see democratic directions?
At the People’s Parliament last Saturday evening, Dr. Melissa Ifill of Operation Rescue UG, told me that she did a doctoral thesis on multi-racial countries and she knows of no recommendation from any book, scholar or organization that rejects democratic inclusiveness in ethnically divided territories (or call it power-sharing if you want) among the major adversaries as a step in eventual reconciliation.
She says the consensus among those who study and write about ethically divided society is that there must be some form of inclusive access to power. In Guyana, we have gone through five national elections in which the ethnic numbers have played out with scientific precision thereby continuing the zero sum game thereby continuing the ethnic insecurities, thereby continuing the life of ethnic passions. In what ways have five general elections dissolved ethnic domination or even made them dormant?
The answer is not even in the thinnest of ways. When I set out to do my research on ethnic discrimination under all the presidencies of Guyana (and which led to the Jagdeo libel case), I had not even in the remotest way any idea of what I would discover. Academics say research is fun and in an ironically brutal way it is. You are researching some of a country’s most sensitive dimensions all of which are of utmost importance to its future yet you feel delighted and you are compelled to laugh a bit at what your fishing net caught.
As I went more and more into the research delving into scholarship awards, hierarchical structures of the public service, land distribution, and business concessions I was overwhelmed by what I was seeing in the documents I was given.
In one public institution, I saw the pyramid of leadership and could not believe what I was looking at on the list of the first sixteen positions in hierarchical order. My paper is 75 pages and titled’ “Ethnic Power and Ideological Racism: Comparing presidencies in Guyana, past and present.”
The people who have championed constitutional reform to weaken the monster of ethnic domination before any election should be contested were ACDA. Its advice was not taken and the PNC and AFC went into the poll and lost in 2006. ACDA had become cynical and did not persist with the advice in 2011 probably saying to itself that the country and political parties know how it feels about the Constitution, the Westminster system and the holding of national elections without reforms of these things.
The AFC and PNC (yes PNC) went into the election again. For the fifth time the PNC lost; for the second time the AFC lost. Are they going to play the game again in 2016? Some folks are going to say that if in 2016 the opposition abstains then the PPP will win. But the PPP won in 2006 and what did the opposition and their supporters get?
If the AFC and PNC go into the game in 2016, and lose, then what’s next for them? I am saying they will not survive politically. A snap poll may be on its way. Look out for it.

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Survival in a zero sum game

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