Latest update April 16th, 2026 12:40 AM
Can the opposition stop Ramotar’s ramapithecus?
I attended the APNU-sponsored rally at Square of the Revolution on Friday evening and the first thing that came to my mind as I walked from my parked car outside St. Sidwell’s School and across the tarmac of the Square, is how ironic that these PNC rallies for freedom are always held at a place that have the word “revolution” in its name but sadly no revolutionary action emerges.
I remember in December 2011, I was asked to speak at an evening meeting of the now defunct Youth Coalition for Transformation, the youth arm of the APNU coalition. The subject was the controversy of the 2011 election results. The attendance was prodigious. Guyana’s youth were plentiful and angry. To date it is the second largest rally after last Friday’s APNU anti-prorogue demonstration. Sadly no revolutionary action emerged.
It was with that irony in mind, that the thought came to be about the revolution thing as I walked on the tarmac Friday night.
What will become of that mammoth gathering of human bodies after Friday? If nothing happens to create a national government in the coming months, would it be a wise policy to continue to use that site that has the word revolution in its name?
It has been one week since Ramotar’s ramapithecus rampaged through an elected Parliament decapitating the sacred principle of one person, one vote and only two forms of protest were held – demonstrations on the very day the ramapithecus entered Parliament and Friday night rally.
When you saw that ocean of bodies last Friday then the opposition has the capacity to fight. Will it fight?
What are Guyanese to expect in the coming days? Whatever happens, one thing is certain – the opposition fears about, Georgetown street action will be a huge factor in any configuration. The fear about the reaction of East Indians to PNC-sponsored street action has reached both surreal and pathetic levels. Is there a way out? There is.
Inside the thinking of both the PNC and AFC is that street demonstrations are used by the PPP to plant agent provocateurs among the protestors. The infiltrators then loot Indian stores, attack Indian folks and assault Indian women. This stratagem is used to scare Indian people who then harden their belief that African Guyanese are violent and that their leaders do not like Indians.
This PPP trick has worked and has worked for one essential reason – the opposition goes into an election and loses because the fear sends Indians back into the arm of the PPP. This evil will continue to be successful because it is devised with the electoral mathematics as its main ingredient. Sadly, the opposition is masochistic in that it walks right into the trap with eyes wide open.
If in the coming weeks, the PNC is going to flex its muscles, it cannot expect the PPP to fold its arms and cry. The Guyana Times gave the game plan away. Long before any opposition strategy was announced, its front-paged images of violence supposedly done by the opposition in earlier periods. The Times let the cat out of the bag. The usual game plan is to scare Indians.
I told Tacuma Ogunseye at the rally that I have a theory about why Parliament was prorogued. But I couldn’t discuss it because the noise level was tremendous. Here is it now. The PPP is waiting for street action. It will wait for a few weeks, then, dissolve Parliament and call elections. Ramotar wants his full term but that is no longer there. The PPP is going into an election, using the traditional fear factor hoping to win a majority. Can they?
I believe the PPP can pull off the plurality thing again if it can successfully soak up the Guyana Times front page into the clothes of Indians. It will try to. Both opposition parties have top class political thinkers. Ramjattan, Nigel Hughes, Nagamootoo, Rupert Roopnaraine, Clive Thomas to name a few.
They must know that if the PPP whips up race hysteria, the PPP may clinch the plurality again.
This country’s “demographic sociology” is weird and bizarre unlike any other in the world. It doesn’t take much for the PPP to play on the Freudian monster inside the soul (not the head or mind but the soul) of the Indian population. The numbers favouring an opposition victory are too thin at this time. It needs a few more years for that to change.
Of course, there is the large percentage of absentee voters and if they vote they can ensure an opposition victory. But who says they will turn up this time? So what is my solution? Constitutional change before elections.
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