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Beware of the WPA!

Apr 01, 2019 Features / Columnists, News, Peeping Tom

The PNCR has to be very careful with the WPA. The President of Guyana who is tipped to be the Presidential candidate of the APNU+AFC slate should be wary of the WPA.
The WPA has degenerated in recent months. Instead of standing firm in defense of the Constitution – something that is in the fine traditions of the WPA – the party of Walter Rodney has wavered between upholding the Constitution and seeking to protect its membership who are employed within the government.
But this degeneration has not tamed its cunning ways. The WPA is capable of fomenting divisions within the APNU+AFC and this is what the leaders of that party have to be careful about.
Whenever political parties and government face a formidable external foe, such as what the PNCR is facing in the PPPC today, it is not uncommon for them to drop their guards internally. And it is times like these that the forces of internal division are at work.
Desmond Hoyte found this out. During his efforts to negotiate a political solution after the 1997 elections, there were forces within his own party who felt that he has betrayed their struggle by signing the Cummingsbug Accord.
The WPA knows this strategy well. It learnt from the experience of the New Jewel Movement in Grenada how obsession with an external enemy can lead to internal implosion.
Maurice Bishop believed that the United States was about to invade his tiny hermit. All the signs were pointing in this direction. He felt that only Cuba could save him. He dropped his guard internally and his best friend of 26 years, took advantage of the situation and created a split within the government and the party.
It was during the hysteria created by the Grenada government’s fear of an imminent invasion by the United States that a demand was made for joint leadership of the party. Just when there was a need for greater national unity and the closing of ranks, the seeds of internal disunity were spread within the New Jewel Movement and the Revolutionary Government of Grenada.
The Coard faction of the New Jewel motion engineered a split within the party with a call for joint leadership of the party. Maurice Bishop, the Prime Minister and the de facto leader of the New Jewel Movement first accepted this demand and then reneged on it.
The call for joint leadership split the revolution. And with the tacit support of reactionary Caribbean leaders, the United States used the opportunity of Bishop’s murder to crush the revolution.
Joint leadership is dangerous notion in the patriarchal societies of the Caribbean. It is a recipe for implosion as it was 36 years ago in Grenada. The WPA knows this all too well.
The old WPA died in 1983 with the collapse of the Grenada Revolution. The party took a backward step, dumped its Marxist outlook and decided that the Caribbean is the United States backyard and that the superpower would not allow a leftist regime in the region. As such, the WPA went through a political metamorphosis, emerging as a Rodneyite party. It has never clearly defined what that means.
The WPA is hanger-on within the coalition. But one of its leaders was one of the architects of the APNU after the earlier failed attempt, by the PNCR, to establish a Big Tent coalition. Despite this, the WPA has ever been treated with the respect it felt it deserves within the coalition – and it has justifiable grounds for so doing.
It has complained consistently about being sidelined in decision-making of the APNU. However, despite nothing being done about this, the WPA has not withdrawn from the coalition. It is believed that the WPA stayed in the government to protect the jobs of their members.
The no confidence motion came. The WPA has refused to take a stand on the issue. It is “dancing between the raindrops.” With the jobs of its members at stake, it is playing it safe.
However, it recognized the opportunities which the no confidence motion presented to solidify its position within the coalition. In January, of this year, the WPA set conditions for its continuance in the coalition.
One of those conditions was that the government apologizes to its support base and the country at large for not living up to the promises enshrined in its manifesto of 2015. The second condition was that there needs to be broadened leadership within the coalition. The WPA also called for a certain Minister to play a more prominent role in the leadership of the party. There is no evidence that that Minister is interested in what the WPA is proposing.
The WPA is playing Kingmaker. The PNCR should be wary of its dealings with this party.

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