The PPP/C has fire in its belly

Jul 09, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – The PPP/C suffered at the hands of the APNU+AFC for five long months during 2020. Despite winning the March 2nd elections, the PPP/C’s presidential candidate – one of the world’s youngest Heads of State – was unable to take up his rightful place as the Executive President of Guyana.
But this was a PPP/C which was not going to do like what Cheddi did in 1992: they were not going to turn a blind eye to what was done to them, what was done to the country and the people and the wrongs which were done during the previous five years of the APNU+AFC rule.
The PPP/C was not prepared to allow the elections to be stolen from them. And they kept the pressure up. They launched a struggle for democracy in Guyana and internationally. They fought politically, and in the courts, and they won in all the arenas in which they contested.
The PPP/C of today is not the same as in 1992, when Cheddi decided to let bygones be bygones. The present PPP/C is not going down that route. They are determined to ensure that what happened to them between March and August 2020 is not repeated. In addition, they are determined to hold the APNU+AFC accountable for any skullduggery, which was discovered to have taken place during the rule of the Coalition.
The PPP/C is not tolerating nonsense from the APNU+AFC. Already, they have begun to engineer the dismantling of the AFC. The AFC has begun to self-destruct; it will be impotent by the time the next election comes around.
But do not for one moment believe that the PPP/C is also not nudging the AFC over the abyss. They have already engineered the crossover of AFC leaders to the PPP/C.
This is a smart strategy. They know that the PNCR cannot ever win an election without support from other parties. The main party, which was responsible for the PPP/C’s loss of its majority in 2011 and its eventual defeat in 2015, was the AFC. And so, by taking the AFC apart, the PPP/C is securing its future in government for a very long time.
The struggle for leadership within the PNCR is mistimed. No matter whom the PNCR elects as its leader, that person cannot become the President of Guyana in 2025. The APNU+AFC sealed the fate of the PNCR when it attempted to benefit from an attempt to rig the 2020 elections.
The PNCR has lost face and it has lost support. Thousands of its supporters were embarrassed by what took place between March and August 2020. Those supporters wanted the Coalition to win but not dishonestly.
The supporters of the PNCR may not all like Irfaan Ali and the PPP/C. But they know who won the elections, and they know it was not the APNU+AFC. If the Coalition had won or if its supporters genuinely believed that it had won, nothing would have prevented these supporters from taking to the streets en masse. That did not happen because they knew the truth.
The PNCR is not fooling anyone when it says that it was cheated out of power by foreign States. The APNU+AFC coalition was the American darling in 2015. But democracy is more important to the Americans than who rules, because it does not matter who is in office, the US will get its way. They have shown this by stifling any attempt by the PPP/C to renegotiate the oil contracts.
Does anyone really believe that former US Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, came here to celebrate the saving of democracy? No, he came here to remind the PPP/C about the sanctity of contracts. All those so-called lions in the PPP/C became lambs when it came to the renegotiation of the oil contract.
But make no mistake about it, the PPP/C is not going to sit by and allow the PNCR to run roughshod over it. The PPP/C did not allow the PNCR to bully it during the elections and it is certainly not sitting back and allowing the PNCR to do as it pleases.
For every action, which the PNCR and its sidekicks launch, the PPP/C has had a response. The latest is in relation to the tabling of the so-called no-confidence motion against two Ministers. The PPP/C is not allowing itself to become any easy target for the APNU+AFC. It has made it clear that it too can file a no-confidence motion against the Leader of the Opposition.
This is a new PPP/C, one with more fire in its belly. It is not bending over to hold talks with the riggers. It insists that the Opposition drops the charade about an illegitimate government before any talks can take place.
It is right. And the APNU+AFC does not realise the absurdity of its stance. Because if the results of the elections threw up an illegitimate government, these results must also have thrown up an illegitimate Opposition. Do fuh do nah obeah!

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