What’s wrong with cooperating to confront nefarious acts or dictatorship?

Dec 04, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The PPP has been adopting a ridiculous approach to the opposition since the election. It blames the opposition and calls it violent, even when it is the PPP’s own actions or inadequacies that lead to violent reprisals from police and violent fight back from citizens.
The PPP is targeting the AFC with the same message it uttered in the last election campaign; “the PNC and AFC ah wan (is one and the same).” That message backfired during the last election. It will backfire even more in a new election. The problem with this message is that it is a direct attempt to appeal to political racism.
The PNC is seen as an African political instrument by Indians just as the PPP is seen as an Indian political instrument by Africans. When the PPP tries to link the AFC to the PNC, it is essentially saying that the AFC is an instrument of the African political instrument. Not only is this position logically untenable because of the prominent roles of Indians in the leadership of the AFC which voters know, it is ideologically flawed, because the PPP is appealing to race at a time when racial demographics show a dwindling Indian support base that cannot on its own ever win the PPP a majority again.
The genie is already out of the bottle and it cannot be put back into it. The problem with trying to paint the AFC with the same colour of the PNC/APNU is that it highlights the PPP’s raw appeal to racial politicking and fear politics.
If the election result was closer like 40% PNC/APNU to 42% PPP, those Indian voters who went to the AFC would have likely rushed back into the arms of the PPP because of the fear of the PNC/APNU returning to power.
However, the margin is much larger (9%) and those Indians who voted for the AFC know they have to simply show up and repeat what they did in 2011 in order to get the same result.
Those Indians also know that if Nigel Hughes appears on the AFC ticket as the presidential or prime ministerial candidate, alongside Nagamootoo, the PNC/APNU will lose votes to the AFC because there is no one in the PNC/APNU camp, David Granger included, who can match Hughes’s energy, charisma and appeal. So, Indians who voted for the AFC in 2011 after leaving the PPP have no incentive to return to the PPP. Nothing in this foolish PPP tactic really changes the game. It only exposes the racially destructive politics of the party at exactly a time when its political future is imperiled by pursuit of this very politics.
Strategically and in terms of resource use and allocation, the AFC has to take common positions with the PNC/APNU on certain issues. It is certainly a point of debate whether the AFC is doing enough to distinguish itself, but it is incontrovertible that when two opposition parties form the opposition in Parliament in a minority government situation, they will generally tend to be consistent in their message on major issues.
What the PPP is not telling its supporters is that it makes it easier for the AFC and PNC/APNU to collude than to distinguish itself. When the PPP sends an internal auditor who discovers fraud at a PPP-run entity on leave, it provides the opposition an easy opportunity to align their attack on the PPP. If the PPP sends the alleged wrongdoer on leave pending an independent audit, it changes the approach of the opposition.
The AFC may agree with the approach while the PNC/APNU may decide it is not enough. Firing the alleged offender will silence the opposition.
Continuing to do wrongful and outlandish things will make it easier for the opposition to join forces. It makes the opposition’s job easier because they can maximize their resources as they are not required to distinguish their positions and to spend resources defending their separate positions.
I want PPP supporters to ask themselves this; if the WPA or AFC won power in Guyana and became a dictatorship or engaged in nefariousness, should the PPP and PNC in opposition stand united against those wrongs or should they refuse to cooperate for the good of the country?
If a government steals, rapes, plunders, corrupts and mismanages, should the opposition parties stand apart and take divided opinions when the majority of the citizenry revokes the actions of government?
If the PPP and PNC were in opposition and a government official steals millions of taxpayers’ money and remains in the job, should they take separate positions for the sake of appearing different or should they both agree the act is criminal and wrong and the government is to blame for keeping that officer?
This does not mean the PPP is the PNC or vice versa. It means taking united positions on specific issues that are vital to the entire country. The PPP continues to make a fool of itself and of those who support it.
M. Maxwell

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