The APNU-AFC regime in 2015: A brief note

Dec 30, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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There is bound to be exasperating criticism of the post-May dispensation for one manifest reason – the expectation is enormous. People want to see the transformation of Guyana against the background of the Jagdeo tyranny.
Deep structural damage has been done to Guyana under the Jagdeo leadership.
The evidence against the post-1999 PPP leadership of abusive and corrupt conduct is so sickening that no other President, from the PNC or PPP, would have even contemplated such conduct much less engaged in it.
It is against this backdrop that the Granger/Nagamootoo team came into power. The expectation of the Guyanese people was gargantuan.
Even sugar workers who voted for the PPP in May 2015 had a genuine desire for the Coalition to fix GuySuCo. Seven months cannot be the yardstick to judge the performance of the coalition. To give the coalition a fail grade could be bordering on academic dishonesty if you are an intellectual.
I would submit that only a pro-PPP propagandist would argue that the coalition has been a failure or performed badly or was undemocratic.
But the dispassionate intellectual could also be accused of analytical bias if he/she gives a stellar grade for the coalition’s seven months in office.
There were lapses that could have been avoided; behavioural patterns that do not augur well for the future; moments of constituency betrayal; unthinking strategies that were almost suicidal; shades of the politics of insecurity.
The remainder of this essay is a brief elongation of these five characteristics.
First, the lapses. The damage done by the secretive salary increase is permanent.
I don’t think there is a coalition fanatic out there that has not reflected on that opportunism and concluded that the APNU-AFC leaders are not what they portrayed themselves to be while in opposition.
The coalition aficionado will be more careful in the future. The salary increase was an assault on the nationalist credentials of politicians, who are expected to make sacrifice for the building of a country that was ruined by authoritarian domination.
To add a touch of immorality, I knew that many election campaigners were refused state employment after the election, when in negotiations they called a figure that many APNU- AFC leaders howled at. It was alright for them to collect their workable income, but not others.
Secondly, behavioural patterns. We have seen in 2015 in the new regime, banal, old politics of cowardice and lack of self-confidence. In the era of the Jagdeo/Ramotar cabal, Ministers ran, literally hid from the press. The automatic response was “the Minister is not there,”  “the Minister is at a meeting,” “sorry no comment.”
The coalition is practicing the identical culture. People voted for a new set of leaders who would show courage and be forthcoming with the media, the opposition and civil society.
They wanted leaders who would speak their minds, speak candidly, and give the nation information the people are entitled to. Only Clive Thomas is in front and by billions of miles.
Thirdly, constituency betrayal. We are seeing subtle shades of the movement away from the promises of the campaign. I will not dwell on the egregious contempt shown for the people in the extension of the barriers around Parliament. I have dealt with that in my columns and in television interviews.
There is no enthusiasm after May 2015 for changes in the marijuana laws. Consultations with society, which the PPP frowned upon, seem to be a thing the coalition finds useful.
The Guyana Human Rights Association says the coalition’s meaning of consultation seems to be the same with the PPP’s
Fourthly, unthinking strategies. Here the analysis applies to the AFC only. Only a naïve person believes that the AFC picked up substantial African and Amerindian votes at the last election.
It was the AFC’s Indian votes that sent the coalition over the fifty percent mark. If the AFC is going to survive in 2020 and beyond, it has to capture Indians away from the PPP. But its choice of the Minister of Agriculture was hopeless, insane and incredible. This was terrible strategizing, the worst you can think of.
Unbelievable, too, is the fact that the Minister is not in the AFC leadership, and told the AFC he is not by nature a political person and doesn’t like politics.
The AFC’s choice is equivalent to APNU putting a Hindu priest from Port Mourant to do groundings with Buxtonian youths.
Finally, the politics of insecurity. As 2015 nears its end, this newspaper has reported that Ministers are being instructed not to be openly critical of their Cabinet colleagues. Isn’t this what the PPP calls democratic centralism?

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