Can the APNU-AFC coalition lose the 2020 general elections?

Jul 08, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I was in a certain business place last Wednesday and the owner came up to me. This is a businessman who, when the PPP was in the government, was very close to President Jagdeo. This is one of the prominent names associated with Mr. Jagdeo.
I would not name him, because in talking to me he asked that I do not identify him should I do a column on the conversation. I remember years ago, one of my pieces looked at the plethora of reasons that would be offered by the beneficiaries of PPP rule should the PPP lose power.
I wanted to quote from it, but I cannot remember the file name. Well the PPP has lost. My predictions have come true; those explanations are pouring down. Clinton Urling saw the role of Jagdeo as one of the causes for the electoral defeat. Dr. Vindhya Persaud, PPP Parliamentarian in the 10th Parliament cited some atrocious behaviour of PPP’s big wigs.
She pointed to the Bheri Ramsaran incident with Sherlina Nageer. She also mentioned the middle finger salute by Rohee after he walked out of the polling station on Election Day.
The businessman left and I made my purchase. He was there outside, next to his expensive black SUV. He engaged me once more. He offered some reasons why the PPP lost. He cited long incumbency.
I partially rejected that, informing him that if long incumbency was accompanied by simple, good behaviour, the PPP could have won again. He agreed. He spoke about arrogance. He told me that he found Bibi Shadick totally unfit to have political authority. I asked when all of this was happening why people like him didn’t speak out. I enquired about his voice when the PPP made the same Bibi Shadick the Pro-Chancellor of the University of Guyana.
He didn’t answer my simple question. Where was the voice of Dr. Vindhya Persaud during the fifteen years of Jagdeo/Ramotar? As the months move on, the Guyanese people in and out of the country will hear more potent and persuasive theories of where and why the PPP went wrong by insiders like the businessman I met, Clinton Urling and Vindhya Persaud, but we must question whether they have the moral standing to offer these critiques.
Power-holders will become tyrants if those who assist them in coming to office do not hold them accountable. Let me offer some names in the second tier leadership of the Alliance For Change that I consider friends – Michael Carrington, Neilson Mc Kenzie, Leonard Craig, Seivewright Benjamin, Marlon Williams, Trevor Williams, Charrandas Persaud, among others. The last five names were my students at UG.
Since the election to office of the AFC, I have repeatedly said to these leaders; do not let the AFC hierarchy do what it wants without speaking out. I have spoken that sermon to Trevor Williams on the phone as recent as last week. It is the silence of others in an organization that allows power to be abused in the administration of a nation’s affairs.
I was at the founding of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) in 1976, and despite its phenomenal success from the time of its birth, the WPA didn’t have the type of courageous internal leadership that encouraged second tier leaders to speak out against the WPA hierarchy.
Every WPA member in the middle and at the bottom of its structure couldn’t bring him/herself to openly criticize the big ones in the WPA.
In this respect, the PNC more than any other political party, has led the way in attempting to put its top officers “under manners”. In Burnham days, the youth wing of the party, the YSM, openly disagreed with Burnham on many occasions. In one instance, Burnham had requested the YSM to send a contingent to greet the visiting Chinese Vice-Premier at the airport. They refused citing China’s relationship with apartheid South Africa.
Opposition Leader, Desmond Hoyte from 1992 onwards faced severe castigations from his executive over policy directions.
The history of this country would have been different if in the PNC and PPP, strong, independent minds had confronted their organizational heads over bad behaviour. The PNC (not APNU) and the AFC leaders are in office, therefore it is imperative that power is made accountable and disciplinary mechanisms exist to check power madness and immoral conduct.
It will happen before 2020 and PNC and AFC personnel must be bold to stop it. Such a style cost the PPP the 2015 elections. The PNC and AFC hierarchy will lose the 2020 poll if they behave like the PPP. This they must be made to understand.

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