Excuses and blame

Nov 21, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Casting blame on others is not going to excuse the performance of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) at the November 12, 2018 local government elections. APNU has to stop blaming others for its uninspiring performance and look very closely at its campaign management and strategy, because this is where the answers to its poor showing lie.
The PPPC did not perform exceptionally. The PPPC garnered slightly more votes than the votes it did in the 2016 elections. So it was not as if the PPPC was so rampant in elections. The PPPC did not over perform. It was APNU that underperformed.
APNU therefore should cease with its sham, which it presented to the people of Sophia about racism being employed in the elections. It should cease this charade about the government being sabotaged by PPP sympathizers within the government and local authorities, resulting in the neglect of APNU bases.
APNU must equally stop crediting the low voter turnout to apathy caused by poor voter education. GECOM found itself mimicking APNU and casting blame on the Ministry of Communities.
The voter turnout in the 2016 elections was 47%. The voter turnout in 2018 was far lower. The majority of the population would have therefore already been familiar with the LGE system, and voter education was not necessarily the cause of voter apathy.
Local government elections do suffer from low voter turnout because the political stakes are lower. Political parties know this, and that is why they make a concerted effort to ensure higher turnouts in their strongholds.
APNU, however, was still unable to have more than a 28% turnout in Georgetown, its electoral fortress. APNU must look within its campaign management to see what went wrong.
APNU’s campaign failed to get out the voters on November 12, 2018. The PPPC was able to make inroads into some of APNU’s former impenetrable strongholds such as Linden and Georgetown.
It was not the lack of development or anyone frustrating its support bases that caused APNU to lose both Lethem and Mabaruma. It had to do with the inability of its campaign to galvanize these bases into which the government had pumped significant development resources.
APNU had no clear strategy and plan as to how to rally its supporters for local government elections. On the other hand, the PPPC, led by Jagdeo, had a clear-cut strategy and knew what it wanted to achieve and how it was going to achieve this.
Jagdeo, since assuming the General Secretary of the PPPC, has been deliberate and purposeful in his approach. Following his party’s razor-thin loss in the general and regional elections of May 2015, Jagdeo set as his first task to consolidate his party’s traditional support base for the 2016 local government elections.
For the 2018 LGE, Jagdeo set about to seize control of some of the smaller towns such as Lethem and Mabaruma, and to create small cracks into the traditional APNU bases.
The PPPC also began to diversify their representation. The PPPC’s slate in Georgetown was the most ethnically diverse. The PPPC succeeded in penetrating into APNU strongholds because it ran a smart campaign with high visibility of its activists and leaders in communities across Guyana.
What was APNU’s campaign strategy? It did not seem to have any. It even dumped the AFC, thereby giving itself a challenger within its main support bases. It ran a poor, ineffectual campaign, which lacked direction and drive.
APNU has reaped the rewards of an incompetent campaign. It has suffered the consequences. The blame game will not work. This is what leaders do to protect themselves from the wrath of their supporters. The PPPC did it after its slim defeat in the general and regional elections of 2015. It said that the elections were rigged.
The PNCR, which is really APNU, is now becoming comical. It is holding post-election rallies. It will not learn. You do not mobilize for LGEs by holding rallies. You have to do the legwork before, not after the elections.
Running a campaign is not planning a military exercise. It requires different skills. If APNU is serious about ascertaining why it underperformed, it should undertake a forensic audit of its campaign and hold those responsible for the party’s poor showing accountable. But guess what, all we will have instead is excuses and blame.

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Excuses and blame

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