Delaying the inevitable

Nov 14, 2016 Editorial

From the PPP’s perspective, the month of May ought to have been a pivotal month in the history of the party. This is so because it has lost power after being in office for 23 years.
Since then, the leaders of the PPP have taken a long, hard look at the party’s current structure, and its preparedness to not only provide strong political opposition as part of the structure of government, but also to be ready for the next election as a credible political force.
Unless one has been hiding under a very large rock, it should be common knowledge that there has been friction and divisiveness in the PPP since the dumping of the last president by its current leader.
Some PPP executives have concluded that self-inflicted wounds have contributed to the worst election defeat in the entire history of the party. The party has handed the reins of power to the coalition government by a one-seat majority in Parliament.
The PPP lost two elections under the former President Donald Ramotar. The loss came in the midst of massive corruption, a high crime rate, immense poverty and a struggling economy. The PPP election campaign was plagued by infighting and poor articulation of its policies. As a result, some of its supporters either stayed home or voted for the coalition. Others felt that the former President dropped the baton.
The PPP had occupied office for 23 uninterrupted years at a time when the economy was heating up at a GDP growth rate of 4.4 percent annually between 2012 and 2015. Comparatively, these were considered the plum years of the economy and should have boosted the popularity of the PPP, but the presence of an unelectable President Ramotar virtually guaranteed victory for the coalition.
In the aftermath of the election came reports that the PPP campaign was rudderless. The caustic tone of Mr. Jagdeo during the election campaign was singled out as the main reason for the defeat of the PPP.
Then, the bombshell announcement that Mr. Jagdeo would be the leader of the party did not sit well with Mr. Ramotar and the old guards at Freedom House. Jagdeo admonished those who had opposed him and warned them of the danger of becoming irrelevant.
After 17 months in opposition, some in the PPP continue to hold the mistaken view that popularity of its leader was sufficient to carry the party to victory in the next election.
The fact that the PPP has lost in 2011 and 2015 shows that the party is in terrible shape with very poor leadership at the helm. The opposition leader has ignored the results of 2012 consensus which shows that the decrease in the Afro-and-Indo Guyanese population makes it unlikely for either of the two major parties to win a majority.
Being defeated in the last two elections proved that the PPP has lost its mastery of winning because it has moved away from its core ideological values of a working class party. It has also lost support.
The opposition leader has not taken responsibility for the loss of the last two elections which many in the PPP blamed on him because of his racial and cuss-down politics. He has not realized that no one can function in leadership forever and there comes a time when stepping aside is the only viable option.
His dictatorial style of politics is causing friction among the senior leadership of the party. And he is fooling himself in delaying the inevitable, and in the process it will eventually be the party’s epitaph.
Further, the PPP which has become a cancer to society is an intellectually unsound and lethargic party. Not only has it mismanaged the economy, it was also highly corrupt. Therefore, its leader’s admonition of the government on the state of affairs of the country is disingenuous. The leaders of the PPP should be very concerned, because many of them are under serious investigation for alleged massive corrupt practices.

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