Behind the green curtains

Oct 24, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Political ambition is ignited whenever elderly leaders assume office. Those below them, who may be young or younger, visualize the time when those leaders will depart the political scene.
In other words, there are visualizations of succession. Some even go as far as beginning to prepare themselves for the day when they will assume the leadership. Some begin to plot their own ascension.
It is suspected that the Leader of the Opposition may have been attempting to refer to this phenomenon at his last press conference when he said that certain things would soon be revealed about what was taking place in the government.
The PPP would know. Soon after it was returned to power, after 28 years of the Guyanese people being denied democratic elections, there were obvious displays of political ambition within the PPP. Cheddi and his wife saw it and it was clear to them that some of their colleagues had ambitions to succeed them.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this. What causes consternation is when this is done openly and at the expense of doing the work of government. In other words, instead of trying to make the government more effective, there were individuals within the PPP/C who were more concerned with positioning themselves for succession at the expense of making the government more effective.
Daggers were being pulled behind screens. There was a tussle behind the scenes between those who were politically ambitious. Persons tried to make others look bad so that they could look good. There were victims of the power struggle which took place behind the scenes. Some resigned; others were let go.
It happens all the time whenever there is a possibility of political succession. It is no doubt happening within the APNU. There must be persons who are seeing themselves as successors of the incumbent. There must be persons who are prepping and preparing themselves for that eventuality.
The fact that Guyana has presidential term limits only tends to fertilise political ambitions. The politically ambitious are not worried about the fact that there is a ruling which deems existing term limits as unconstitutional and undemocratic.
Within the PNC/R there will be persons who will be preparing for political succession. Those persons, however, face a number of critical challenges.
The first is that they have to overcome the stigma of a party which was associated with rigging of elections and whose own internal elections, save and expect for the last elections held this year, were marred by controversies and narrow victories.
There are obvious political divisions within the PNCR. There are, as in any party, factions within the PNCR.
The second challenge is how to garner the necessary support inside and outside of the party to become popular enough to assume leadership when the time comes. Alliances and links have to be made. Those who are smart enough know that they must court the support of powerful business interests because it is the financial support of the business community which is required to help finance a party’s bid for government. One therefore in trying to identify those who are political ambitious, examines whether such linkages are being forged.
The third challenge is that those persons need state power to advance their ambitions. You are not likely to find in the Guyanese political culture, persons from outside of the government vying to succeed the president.
In the end it comes down to who will have the greatest support within the PNC/R, but that support is better advanced through the use of the state machinery.
Political succession within the PNC/R will come from inside of the government. The Leader of the Opposition knows that all too well. He would have seen the futile attempt of those outside of the government but in the party, trying to rival for political succession.
Politics in Guyana can be depressing if you are looking only at the surface. The politics of Guyana becomes more intriguing if you look at what is taking place behind the scenes – if you look at the battle for political succession that is silently taking place within the PNC/R.
Make no mistake about it, the PPP has no such battle. The leadership of the PPP/C has been seized unmistakably by Bharrat Jagdeo. There are no successors in place.
The same cannot be said about the PNC/R. The leaders of that party who are in government know that, within the next ten years, there will be a contest among them to see who succeeds the incumbent leader. The plots and schemes are taking place, behind the green curtains. Whoever wins must have the support of powerful financial interests.

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