‘We and them’ politics

Mar 22, 2016 Editorial, Features / Columnists

The just concluded Local Government Elections have revealed many things about the voting population. For one there are voting enclaves that would remain unchanged over the years. Areas that have been lending political support to one or other of the political parties have done so in no small measure.
Not so long ago there was talk about migration and population shift. Of course there were shifts in the demography with the construction of the various housing schemes. For example, back in 1994 there was no Diamond Housing Scheme, nor was there an Eccles Housing Scheme. The people who now live there lived elsewhere.
But there was a local government area where these schemes now are. The political demography would have shifted one way or the other. There would be significant changes in the local authorities.
The People’s Progressive Party, the main opposition party, is still smarting from its defeat at the polls just under a year ago. Its leaders keep insisting that its votes were stolen in 2015. With this in mind, the party sought to glean a large measure of success from the local government poll results. The General Secretary spoke of an overwhelming victory; while others close to the party spoke of the people turning their backs on the coalition government because of broken promises, and issues such as the pay increases granted to the government Ministers.
There is a lot wrong here, because the results actually show that in places that count, there has been a large forward movement in support for the government. In 1994, just shy of two years after the People’s National Congress lost the General Elections, the party suffered a huge loss in the city. Georgetown has always been its stronghold, but the voters were sending a message to the leader of the party.
Hamilton Green was a leader in the Burnham Administration until that electoral loss in 1992. Desmond Hoyte took the decision to keep Green out of the National Assembly, and make him General Secretary of the People’s National Congress. Green did not take kindly to this and made his objection known. When the elections came along, a vast majority of People’s National Congress supporters voted for Green’s party in the Local Government Elections. He won on a ‘punishment vote.’
The People’s Progressive Party appeared to have considerable more support in the city back then because it won eight seats. Today it secured a mere two seats. The figures are not readily available, but one would assume that more people cast votes this time round than in 1994. The bottom line is that the PPP has lost support in the city.
It has also lost support in the Municipalities of Bartica, Linden and RoseHall, Corentyne. Better put, it appeared to have failed to expand or to maintain its support base in those communities, with the result that it attracted fewer votes this time around. Yet in the face of this performance, where it matters, the PPP has been talking of demonstrating that it remains a force to be reckoned with on the political stage.
There is no doubting this. Similarly, one should not read too much into the level of support a political party gains at these elections. In some cases, had the voter turnout been different the results in some of the rural areas would have been different.
Claims of stolen votes and rigged elections are doing nothing to heal the political divide; they are doing nothing to pacify the anger of the losers of the elections, especially the ordinary man who looked to his political party for shelter and support. He distrusts the other political party for ethnic reasons.
The diplomatic community has been supportive of the elections. As it did in the General Elections, it pronounced, favorably, on the conduct of the elections. Indeed, the opposition is not enamoured with the diplomatic community at this time, but it could appreciate the conduct of the elections. Yet it says that the Guyana Elections Commission is not off the cards for criticism. This suggests that acrimony and ‘we and them’ politics would be a way of life for the foreseeable future.

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‘We and them’ politics

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