Do APNU and the AFC know about David Axelrod?

Apr 23, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There is a song that each time you play it, the PNC gets depressed. If played often it will disintegrate the psychology of the PNC. It is the story of an avoidable electoral loss APNU suffered in 2011
Roughly about 120,000 eligible electors did not vote. If you break down the percentage by (a) those that migrated, (b) PPP abstainers, (c) AFC abstainers, (d) PNC abstainers, the PNC took the largest chunk. That number was large enough to have given them a plurality. It didn’t happen because the PNC in 2011 had no Guyanese equivalent of David Axelrod. The AFC, too, had no Axelrod.
It was a foregone conclusion that had the AFC saturated Region Three with its presence in the 2011 election, it could have received about two more seats
I don’t believe the PNC and the AFC should participate in another general election unless there are commonsensical constitutional changes. The risk is too great if the PPP wins. A victory for the PPP in another election marks the end of the AFC and the dormancy of the PNC, probably a weakening of the PNC that could damage it to the point where resuscitation may not be possible.
Should the PNC and the AFC contest another general election, they should heed the words of Axelrod. He is an American electoral strategist who carved out victories for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. He was particularly good in 2012 when the world believed that the election was too close to predict an Obama re-election
Last week, Axelrod was hired by the British Labour Party to strategize for them in the 2015 elections. This is an extremely crucial election for the world, not only the UK. It is a fight between the Conservative David Cameron and a left-leaning candidate of substance, Ed Miliband.
If you don’t know Miliband, then you may know his father, Ralph Miliband.
If you attended university in the seventies anywhere in the world and you did a course in 20th century political philosophy, then your professor would have had a compulsory item on the course outline – the theories of the Marxist theoretician, Ralph Miliband. Miliband’s most famous work, “The State in Capitalist Society,” was on our reading list when I did political philosophy as a student at UG.
Miliband is to the left of Obama. While you may regard Obama as a deep liberal, Miliband is even deeper. It would be a loss to the world if a politician that is so oriented to helping the poor of the UK loses.
Axelrod has been called in. Here is what Axelrod told the British Guardian and the PNC and AFC should listen. He said, “Ultimately, a campaign like this (the British election in 2015) is going to work by mobilising people at the grassroots and in local communities who understand they have a stake in this, and that their economic future is on the ballot paper.”
This is what the PNC and AFC have to do from day one. Get into those communities, stay there and work tirelessly every day on the grassroots. Despite the billions of dollars the PPP will put into the election, the PPP is starting at a tremendous disadvantage.
Here are three congenital negatives that God, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama cannot erase from the PPP.
One – be nice to the population by appearing as good guys doing good things. The PPP has crossed the line so badly that no advice from any of the fantastic names mentioned above can get them to listen. The reason is simple – absolute power destroys absolutely. Just days before the voting, the PPP leadership will put on a display of arrogance and vindictiveness that would make 20th century European fascist leaders blush.
Two – as a spin-off from number one — who dares to advise someone like Roger Luncheon or Clement Rohee? If Gandhi and Mandela rise from the grave and go to Freedom House, put their hands on the shoulders of Rohee and Luncheon and say, “Sons, you must listen to the people,” the reply will be predictable; “Brother Gandhi and Brother Madiba, you know who you are talking to? The ruling party!”
Three – there is an entire school of losers that will headline the PPP campaign, but so full of hubris and hauteur is the PPP, they present a natural advantage for the PNC and AFC. The hubris and hauteur blind the PPP from seeing them as election losers. They are Bharrat Jagdeo, Clement Rohee, Sam Hinds, Gail Teixeira, Roger Luncheon and Donald Ramotar.

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Do APNU and the AFC know about David Axelrod?

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