The WPA is up confusion creek

Oct 25, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

David Hinds, a leader of the Working People’s Alliance, and a columnist of this newspaper argued in his most recent column that the APNU+AFC coalition had collapsed and that what we have in Guyana is the PNC government. It took Hinds a full three and half years to realize the obvious but as Guyanese would say better late than never.
Admitting that his party, the WPA has not been attractive electorally, he nonetheless maintains that its policies were able to maintain four small constituencies which critical constituencies which make up the independent section of the Guyanese society.
These four small constituencies are those who saw multiracial politics as the way forward for Guyana; second, the intelligentsia; third, the radical revolutionary elements and fourth Black nationalists.
The WPA is free to delude itself. The record will show that multiracial politics died with the emergence of electoral democracy and if there is any multiracial force it is the AFC.
Second, the WPA would be hard pressed to identify those persons within its membership and support base who are members of the intelligentsia. On this score, the WPA is living in the past.
Third, radical politics died a long time ago in Guyana. The WPA does not have a radial core within its membership or support base.
Fourth, this is the first time that the party is indicating that a segment of its membership is wedded to Black Nationalism. It would be much better for the party to admit to be influenced by ethno-centrism.
Hinds then went on to express the view that the restraint showed by the PNC leadership during the 2011 and 2015 negotiations with the AFC was not emulated while in government. He accused the PNC of engineering a coup within the coalition.
He said that the PNC-WPA alliance has deteriorated since 2015, with the PNC governmental leadership’s stubborn refusal to treat the WPA as an actual partner, despite the WPA’s loyalty to the coalition.
His position is that APNU has been deactivated and what remains is the PNC which has hijacked the government from the rest of the coalition.
Hinds correctly observes that the WPA is a non-player in the government. And the AFC feels the same sense of collective alienation noting that while the AFC has a lot of Ministers, but little power. For him, the PNC has used its numerical majority in Cabinet and the powerful presidency to monopolize decision-making on decisive matters. He admits to the WPA’s inability to push-back the PNC.
Hinds deliberately uses the abbreviation PNC and not PNCR. The former carries all the connotations associated with its dastardly and dictatorial past.
The logical question which flows from Hinds’s commentary is why, then, is his party still in the coalition. Why if the APNU has been deactivated, does the WPA not disassociate itself with the APNU local government campaign?
In a letter to the Stabroek News another leader of the WPA, Tacuma Ogunseye accused the PNC executive of using the APNU’s name as a ploy to hide the fact that it is the PNCR which is contesting the 2018 local government elections under the convenient guise of the APNU.
Yet, he goes on to state that the five parties making up the APNU agreed to contest as a united group.
Now if the PNC has hijacked, according to Hinds, the coalition government and if, according to Ogunseye, it is the PNC which is contesting the local government under the camouflage of the APNU, then why did the WPA consent to contest the said elections as the APNU, a grouping which for all intents and purposes has been deactivated?
If the WPA shares the view that the APNU+AFC coalition has collapsed and that it is the PNC and not the APNU which is contesting the local government elections, how does it justify being part of the government and consenting to being part of the APNU’s local government campaign? Why has it not announced that it is withdrawing from the government and the local government campaign?

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