Losing is part of the winning formula

May 21, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Success in life, in great measure depends upon winning. Whether it is in education, sport, business or politics.
One thing which is common to all successful persons, however, is losing. The road to success is littered with failures.
Presently, the PNCR and most of its supporters are traumatized. They know they lost the elections but they do not want to accept the results. They view losing as devastating rather than as an opportunity to learn, to become stronger and to use that experience to improve.
It is understandable, but not acceptable, why some of the party’s leaders are traumatized. Many of them are too old to wait around for 2025. This may be the end of their political careers.
They are traumatized and it is evident in their behaviour. One leader was seen on video claiming that the PPPC said it won Georgetown. The PPPC never said that. The PPPC not only lost Georgetown by a massive margin but it also lost District 4, but not by a large enough margin to lose the overall elections.
Misinformation is being pedaled. One leader told reporters that the PPPC killed more than 500,000 persons. These are the typical symptoms of emotional trauma following an election loss.
In 1992, a PNC strongman was highly traumatized by the party’s loss in the elections of that year. Desmond Hoyte had to dispatch an envoy to counsel the strongman.
Another symptom of post-election trauma is attacking and blaming others, rather than taking responsibility. We see it right now where persons are lashing out at the western nations. One individual is now pushing a new narrative. He is accusing the western nations of taking sides in the Guyana elections.
Of course, they have taken a side. They have taken the side of free, fair and transparent elections. They are siding with democracy. What side has this critic taken? Has he taken the side of dictatorship, dishonesty and disruption?
The PPPC supporters displayed the same symptoms after their 2015 election loss. They too blamed the western nations for taking sides in the elections.
What you are witnessing therefore are the signs of traumatic depression. And this is a problem which is not just confined to politics. Small children are placed under severe pressure to do well at examinations; athletes must push their bodies to extreme limits in order to win; and competition in the business environment follows Darwinian rules: the fittest will survive.
Its therefore not surprising that competitive political processes, such as elections, can lead to emotional trauma for the losers. Losers end up being traumatized because they have failed to accept that preceding every triumph have been many losses.
Ask any top athlete and they will tell you that you can never become a winner unless you learn first how to lose. Losing teaches you what you need to do to win.
The APNU+AFC will eventually have to do the analysis, as the PPPC did internally after the 2015 elections.
There are many factors which contributed to the Coalition’s loss. There were many missteps which were made. If the APNU is to rebound in 2025, it will have to candidly assess its mistakes over the past five years and especially during the election campaign. It will have to weigh each of the factors to determine the most decisive reasons for its electoral loss to the PPPC by more than 17,000 votes.
The truth is staring the APNU in the face. But in its traumatized mode, it is not willing to accept that it made mistakes.
The hardest thing for most people is to admit they were wrong. The APNU will have to face up eventually accept that it made mistakes.
The proof of what went wrong are in the results. And it is simple. The PNCR held its base but the AFC failed to deliver.
This was evident in the results in District 4 where, even though the Coalition won, they did not garner the necessary lead to overcome the PPPC. And the main reason for this is the AFC did not deliver. It lost support to the new small parties which garnered 4,471 votes in District 4 in this year’s elections as compared with only 709 in 2015.
The APNU will have to analyze whether its poor management of inter-coalition dynamics and its humiliation of its Prime Ministerial candidate contributed to the AFC becoming ‘dead meat’. And consequently to the Coalition’s defeat

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