One-term governments are here to stay

Jan 10, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Nomination Day is today, and from all accounts, the elections are going to be dominated by the two largest political groupings, APNU+AFC and the PPPC. Both sides are confident, but one side is going to be grossly disappointed at the end of the elections. And this is something which the political supporters have to get accustomed to in this and all future elections.
One-term governments will become a feature of national politics. One government will win one election and the other will win the other. The public has to get accustomed to regular changes in government via elections.
One-term governments will mean that each of the two main political parties will have a genuine chance of holding power. This may be a good thing for such a divided country.
The other feature which will manifest itself is either minority governments or governments with razor-slim majorities. The former depends on the performance of the smaller parties, which are hoping to get their feet wet politically this time around, but have to avoid going under.
The latter will result from the country’s ethnic arithmetic and voting patterns. Voting remains primarily along ethnic lines and Guyana’s ethnic composition will always, in such circumstances, be an ethnic census.
The country is likely to witness musical chairs with the government. The APNU+AFC coalition is likely to be replaced by a PPP government in the 2nd March elections.
Many of its supporters will not be pleased to hear this or accept it. But it is something to which they must grow accustomed.
The PPPC humiliated the Coalition at the 2016 local government elections. The APNU+AFC suffered a tremendous setback in those elections and were not able to recover in 2018 when the PPPC won again by more than 50,000 votes.
The only other time in which the PPP won the popular vote by a larger margin of votes was in the 1992 General Elections. On that occasion, it won by 60,000 votes.
While local government elections are not an effective predictor of what will happen in general elections, the commanding majority gained by the PPPC at both the 2016 and 2018 elections suggests that it will be impossible for that party to be defeated at this year’s general and regional elections.
The North American Caribbean Teachers’ Association (NACTA) did an opinion poll recently. They found that more than 80% of the population felt that the production sharing agreement signed with Exxon was not a good deal. They also found that the majority of the population was dissatisfied with the government’s performance.
Yet, when they polled people’s political preferences, it was found that people were likely to vote along traditional political lines, a euphemism for ethnic lines. Policies or performance really do not count much. So it matters not what the government did or did not do, their supporters will vote for them
But the APNU+AFC coalition can only win if the AFC brings in about 10% of the votes. And that is not likely to happen, because the AFC’s support has been downgraded since it became part of the government.
The AFC’s Leader was essentially humiliated by the failure of APNU to confidently introduce him as the Coalition’s Prime Ministerial candidate. This will have serious repercussions for the AFC at the polls, and is likely to mean that the AFC will not be able to deliver the quota needed to allow the Coalition to surpass the PPPC.
If that happens, APNU must not blame anyone. The recent confusing statements made recently about the Prime Ministerial candidate represent a case of APNU’s leadership shooting itself in the foot. It is dumb politics.
Even if the PPPC wins the next elections, it is not likely to do so by any landslide. It may even struggle to attain a working majority in the National Assembly. And any tenuous majority is likely to be easily overturned in elections in 2025.
There is a strong likelihood that the PPPC will lose in 2025 to a resurgent APNU+AFC as the smaller parties eat into the PPPC’s support base.
Guyanese therefore should grow accustomed to regular changes in government. One-term governments are here to stay. Get with it!

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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