THE OPPOSITION HAS NOT CHANGED

Nov 27, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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In a matter of days, it will be one year since a new President took over. Unlike his predecessors he did not enjoy the luxury of a parliamentary majority.
Unlike others before him, also, the new President is not interested in a personality cult and in fact has gone as far as saying he is not interested in imparting his own brand on the presidency.
He is very much an unassuming and humble man and this is showing in his style.
However we live in a country in which people have grown accustomed to a ubiquitous presidency. Coming to grips with one with a different style will take some time to get used to.
The president, of course, also came to power under circumstances that were in stark contrast to his predecessors. The ruling party lost its majority in the National Assembly.
The results of the elections have demonstrated that ethnic voting remains entrenched and has become more calcified than ever. Inexplicably, after close to twenty years of restoring Guyana’s fortune, rescuing the economy, improving the lives of its citizens and achieving six years of unbroken economic growth, the ruling party still failed to win a substantive number of cross-over votes.
At the same time, despite the loss of votes in some areas, the PPPC support base showed no signs of any serious fissures, politically.
Both of the main parties therefore retained much of their traditional base. That has not changed at all.
The PPPC’s massive housing drive had given tens of thousands of Guyanese the opportunity to own their own homes. This alone was expected to lead the PPPC gaining the support of any who traditionally would have voted for the opposition.
In one area, Diamond, where thousands of houses have been constructed, the vote was split fifty-fifty, revealing that the housing drive did not bring the PPP votes.
But the PPPC did lose votes and ground an in its traditional base and this was as a result of hard work by the opposition supporter, particularly the AFC, as well as because of the model of economic development which has neglected rural development and focused almost exclusively on macro factors rather than development at the grassroots.
Complacency of their supporters manifested by many of them staying at home. Many PPPC supporters did not anticipate given all that was achieved economically that the PPP would have lost. As such they stayed at home and this hurt the PPPC chances.
When the results came in they got the shock of their lives when they learnt that though the PPP won and won comfortably, they did not secure a parliamentary majority.
Hopes were high that the results of the elections would lead to an improved standard of governance. It was also clear that a great deal of the first year of the new presidency would have to be spent building bridges between the government and the opposition and there was indeed a promising start to this process.
But it is not easy for a leopard to lose its stripes and even while expressing its willingness to build political cooperation, the opposition was up to its old tricks by trying to call into question the results of the elections.
The fact that the government was now in the minority also opened the way for some politicians to settle old political scores and this intention became evident during the Budget debate when scandalous Budget cuts were proposed, some of which if they had materialized would have threatened the livelihood or workers and effectively shut down a number of programmes in the country.
Instead of the new dispensation being used to bring about a new political culture, that potential was squandered primarily by the opposition parties. Instead of greater civility, the opposition seemed bent on giving the government a hard time.
No self respecting government would now have anything to do with the opposition and thus it now seems inevitable that we can have elections by Easter.
Despite this negative prognosis, there were a number of positives which suggest a moving away from some of the controversial aspects of the Jagdeo administration. The opposition will never give credit for these developments and will try to downplay or misrepresent them but it is increasingly becoming clear that the opposition in this country is fast losing its relevance.
Foremost amongst the changes has been a willingness to be open about some of the major contracts that were signed under the previous administration. The government has made public to both the opposition parties and to the media, the long sought after details of major deals inked by the Jagdeo administration. Better than that, it has held special briefing for the opposition so that the opposition can be privy to information that could not be revealed in public. This has been a step in the right direction.
Another positive development has been the changes with the state media and particularly within NCN. From day one of the new presidency, the views of the opposition have been ventilated on newscasts on the state media. And while there are some recent disturbing signs that opinions are now being passed off as news items, and while the Chronicle still is stuck in its old ways, it can be said that NCN has shown a greater willingness to be more open to opposition views. This has been reflected in the extensive coverage given to the Budget debates which were carried in full on radio and in an edited form on national television. Also, the opposition parties were invited and in some cases have taken up the opportunity to appear on state television. That would have been unheard of one year ago and shows the great turnaround that is taking place in sections of the state media.
There are of course a number of troubling areas on which there has not been sufficient movement and these will be discussed in a subsequent column.

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