Inside the Fourth Reich

Mar 22, 2013 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

If you ask the average person who will win a snap election they are likely to answer in a peculiar way. It is likely to be that the PPP will get even fewer votes. The reception I have got since rumours of a snap poll began to circulate is that the average citizen does not feel that the AFC or APNU will triumph. But they don’t believe the PPP will win either. They believe that the PPP is still powerful so it will get more votes than their opponents, but they do not believe it will be a parliamentary majority.
You can’t blame them. After five consecutive victories, people feel the PPP cannot lose the presidency. After all, five times is powerful enough to convince John Public. You also have to put into the equation that despite some nasty years in power, the PPP still secured more votes individually than the AFC and APNU.
Since the loss of a parliamentary majority, Guyanese are beginning to feel that the PPP is weakening. Factually the PPP had its strength cut down. It failed to go over the fifty percent mark. But how do the PPP leaders feel?
This is where psychology comes in. Since time immemorial, the ordinary human has been unable to understand what makes people with unlimited power tick. After more than two thousand years of civilization the situation remains the same. We mortal humans simply cannot comprehend the thinking of a leader who possesses enormous power over his/her subjects. In simple language, dictators are not people to whom logical analysis can be applied.
On the cocktail circuit, in the home, in the bars and restaurants, you can hear people say; “They want to call snap elections but they will lose again.” But the dictators inside of Freedom House will laugh at you or cynically dismiss your prediction. They don’t feel they will be defeated. The kings and queens of the Fourth Reich in Guyana operate on a different reality plain to the Guyanese people.
Armed with money, television stations, radio stations, newspapers and an enormous network of an overlapping, overriding network of trade union, cultural and religious organizations, the PPP monarchs inside the Fourth Reich deeply believe that a parliamentary majority can be obtained in a general election within the coming months. You and I know that the money and media and networks were all there last year but victory was denied and the margin of ignominy could have been larger if there weren’t forms of disheveled campaigning by both APNU and the AFC.
This columnist believed that the AFC neglected Region Three and APNU didn’t use Herculean efforts to get out their Region Four constituencies. If these pitfalls were avoided, the PPP would have suffered a more embarrassing percentage reduction.
So will the PPP call a general election this year or early next year? I believe it will. Here are my reasons.
First, as history has shown with authoritarian structures, no one has the courage to tell strong-headed autocrats that popularity is waning. No communist or Nazi leader could have dared to say that during emergency meetings. The fear would have been too great. In fact, the fear of being demoted or victimized would have instantly deterred those willing to come forward.
Secondly, group-think culture prevents second tier leaders from being frank and honest with their party seniors. In authoritarian systems, no one can think outside the box.
Thirdly, and this is specific to the PPP, the messianic culture has imprisoned all PPP leaders. They are imbued with the gargantuan deception that they have been better leaders, are better rulers, the Guyanese people prefer them and history will be on their side. Cheddi Jagan and his party never thought for a fleeting moment that the PNC would have lasted in office from 1964 to 1992. Jagan thought so because history would favour him over the PNC.
Fourthly, PPP monarchs seriously embrace the illusion that since the 2011 election, the AFC and APNU have lost support, recognition and respect. This thinking, of course, is not done in a comparative framework. In the war room inside the Fourth Reich, when meetings are called, each tsar and tsarina pour scorn on the opposition.
The weaknesses and failings of the opposition are probably placed onto a big screen where everyone in the room is convoluted with uncontrollable laughter. No one will say that the opposition is falling and so are we so we have to re-strategize. Of course not! How can anyone say that? Dictators cannot see reality.
Failure to recognize reality has been the downfall of all dictators without exception. Look out for a national election soon.