THE SUPPORTERS OF THE PPPC HAVE A DECISION TO MAKE

Jun 28, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

No one has yet assessed why it was that the political dynamics did not change as a result of the AFC joining with APNU. It was widely assumed that the decision of the AFC to join with APNU would have led to the demise of the AFC, since those of its supporters who were formerly from the PPPC would have returned to their old party.
This did not happen, even though the PPP ran a campaign that basically said that a vote for the AFC was a vote for APNU. In some areas, the coalition did not perform as well as the combined effect of both parties in 2011, but it brought the bacon home, and it did so in an election in which the PPPC recovered tremendous ground.
The election was essentially won by the coalition because the PPPC failed to make sufficient inroads into the AFC’s support base. In other words, the votes that the PPPC lost in 2011 to the AFC did not fully return to the PPPC, with the result that it narrowly lost the elections.
There is of course an election petition filed alleging irregularities, but this column has in the interim to go with what was declared. Until evidence of mass irregularities is produced – and I do not think this evidence exists – the assumption has to be that the elections were free and that the PPPC lost those elections by the skin of its teeth.
So why did the supporters of the AFC who had migrated from the PPPC to the AFC in 2011 not return to the PPPC after the AFC joined with APNU?
The view was that those supporters, while disliking the PPPC, would never have voted for APNU and would have either stayed home or cast their votes for the PPP. That did not happen and the elections of 2015 were virtually a re-run of the 2011 elections, the only difference being that this time there was a pre-election coalition.
It is not easy to answer that question without an exit poll, but it is something that the PPPC has to ask itself. It has to question why it was not able to split the AFC’s support base.
It may be that when people, after years of supporting one party vote for another party, they stick to the new allegiance. In other words, people do not necessarily shift their allegiances from one election to the next. They may eventually do so, but that may be a process that takes time. That is one possible explanation.
The more important explanation – and one that I believe has credibility – is that sufficient numbers of PPPC supporters felt that it was a time for a new government. The PPPC had burnt itself out. It had lost its creativity. Its organization on the ground was in tatters. The Ministers basically were going house to house campaigning.
When in the past there would have been area representatives and groups to do much of the work and mobilize the party’s rank and file, this work was centralized; area groups were allowed to deteriorate and therefore mobilization was ineffective. The monies for the party’s campaign were spent on mass rallies and mass advertisements, and little was spent on developing the area groups. This cost the PPP critical votes.
So the PPPC, while erasing the apathy amongst its supporters in 2011, did not have an effective organization on the ground to bring most of those votes to the PPP.
The people had decided that it was time for change. APNU and the AFC probably wasted millions in dollars by even bothering to campaign. They would have won the elections without even having to campaign, because their supporters had decided that enough was enough, and that it was time for the PPPC to go.
The people had enough of the PPP; its arrogance, its mistreatment of people, its failure to put up a defence against the tidal wave of corruption allegations and its abuse of power. It assumed and assumed wrongly that it could do as it did in the past and win the election.
The PPP therefore has to understand its mistakes. It has to look closely at its image which has been damaged beyond repair by its leaders. When your image is so badly damaged, it makes no sense to try to redeem it. You have to rebrand and come again.
As part of this rebranding, there has to be a change of guard. If the party’s leadership cannot accept this, if they are unwilling to let go of the reins of power, then the party faithful would have to let go of the PPP, and either create a new PPP or join the AFC.

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THE SUPPORTERS OF THE PPPC HAVE A DECISION TO MAKE

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