The PNC/R will be in Opposition for a very long time

Aug 09, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – The PNC/R may have done more than simply shot itself in the foot. It may have inflicted a grievous wound on itself as a result of its attempt to benefit from rigged elections.

Guyana appeared headed for a future of one-term governments. The changes in the country’s demography and emergence of a number of small parties which prepared to join their respective Lists, and the razor slim majorities which have emerged in the National Assembly since 2011, all pointed to one-term governments becoming a permanent feature of Guyana’s electoral politics.

The PNC/R, by its shenanigans in the General and Regional Elections of 2020, has so harmed its credibility that it may have given the PPP/C a life’s holder pass to political office. It is difficult to imagine the PPP/C losing the next elections and the one after that.

And this has little to do with the fact that the incumbent regime has control over the oil revenues. Those oil revenues are a curse onto this nation because when the oil companies are finished with Guyana, it will be deeper in debt than before oil was discovered.

Already the government has begun to seek loans for national development. It is asking the Saudis to establish a billion dollar investment fund for Guyana. It has signed a Memorandum of Understanding for US$2 billion line of credit with the Exim Bank of America. The oil monies are not sufficient to finance the government’s national agenda and so it is seeking external finance. It is even begging for money for climate mitigation and it wants this on soft terms.

The fact of the matter is that even without oil, the PPP/C will cruise to victory in 2025 and 2030. These races should have been close contests. But they will no longer be because of the assault on democracy which was perpetrated by the APNU+AFC.

The PNCR/R is the major party in the APNU+AFC. All the other parties in the APNU are cardboard parties. Having elected a leadership which embraces a discredited narrative, the PNC/R will find it difficult to reclaim political credibility.

How can the PNC/R hope to regain political appeal when it continues to insist that the elections were rigged by the PPP/C. Not even its most ardent supporters truthfully accept this narrative.

The PNC/R did not need to go down this road. The 2011 and 2015 elections showed how much the country’s racial demography has changed, a fact confirmed by the 2012 census. East Indians no longer are a majority in the country. In fact, East Indians’ share of the population has declined precipitously and far greater than any other ethnic group.

The Africans share of the population declined by slightly less than one percent between 2002 and 2012. On the other hand, the Indians share of the population declined by more than three and half percentage points for the corresponding period.

Also, the percentage of mixed Guyana has increased to the extent that this grouping can wield significant influence in any election. The Mixed population moved to almost 20 percent of the population, making it a crucial electoral demographic.

These facts have implications for elections. While it remains true that ethnic voting still predominates, the reality is that ethnic voting is not as deterministic as it used to be. Even if the PPP/C, for example, gets all the Indian votes, that would not grant it a ticket to government. It needs the support of other demographics.

In 2011, the PPP/C lost Indian support in West Berbice. Those votes went to the AFC because of the strong campaigning by former members of Ravi Dev’s ROAR who had been recruited by the AFC. The treatment of the sugar workers in that area was also decisive. When Jagdeo realised the falling support in West Coast Berbice, he went to meet the sugar workers. They told him, “Boat dun gone ah Falls.”

While therefore ethnic voting dominates elections, it is not as deterministic as it once was. Both parties have begun to recognise the importance of both the Mixed and the Indigenous vote.

The changing demographics means that the PPP/C is no longer guaranteed a victory by virtue of its stranglehold on the Indian vote. The APNU and AFC together held a majority in the 2011 Parliament. And when they formed the APNU+AFC Coalition in 2015, the grouping secured a one seat majority.

In government, they however behaved as if they had a commanding majority. And then in the 2020 elections, the APNU+AFC dissolved whatever chances it had to regaining power in 2025 by not distancing itself from the plot to rig the elections.

There is no place for electoral cheats in the modern era. By continuing to embrace a discredited narrative, the PNC/R has not only shot itself in the foot, it has shut itself out of political office for a very long time.

Instead of blaming the PPP/C, the supporters of the PNC/R should blame those who are responsible for thwarting whatever chances the PNC/R has of ever regaining political office.

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