What sense third parties, then?

Oct 12, 2024 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall…

Kaieteur News – By this hour next year, Guyana should be abuzz with the presence of several new political parties contesting in the national elections.  Enthusiastic they would all be about their chances of electoral success.  How many, if any, would announce itself when the numbers are counted.  Hopefully, there is only one official count this time coming.  Notwithstanding their vociferous energy, oaths to country and people, what are their odds of newcomers making a mark, any kind?  For emphasis: what chance new parties?

As fleshed out elsewhere recently, the chances of electoral success for new political pups are slim to marginal to almost nonexistent.  Electoral success, what is that one-legged beast?  Only a madcap political operator would enter the local electoral jungle with bright expectations.  No issues there for me, except that there are a few large holes hovering, ever ready to remind arriviste aspirants of their folly.  That is, think big, and truly believe that they could do well in any Guyanese national elections.  Better be ready for a long, hard fall.  Striking the ground is where the trouble, the abrupt reminders are encountered.  Where are the votes?  Where is the broad interest?  Where is the movement?  For clean governance, genuine oil management, banishment of cult leadership and the bandwagon of vagabonds that plunder Guyana’s riches?  Try these reality checks, first.

Call them whatever pleases, diehards, fundamentalists, tribalists, fanatics, and here is the first truth: dem ain goin no way but weh deh always been.  The cup or the palm tree.  Pardon for succumbing to the wiles of mischief by summoning scripture: the cup of these faithful overflows under their fig tree.  It may be a distorted message, but it is real, isn’t it?  That is, mainly Indians for the Indian party (PPP), the same with African Guyanese for African party (PNC).  The elections just ended there and then, and the observers could pack their bags, and book their return tickets for 2030.  That is, unless they choose to stay here, and wait for a stake in the resource bonanza open to all.  And with the right recognition from the right people in the ruling seat, of course.

To be clear, I am not asserting that every Guyanese of Indian or African descent [trusting that I have that right]) will vote with the back of their heads.  What is being insisted is that the old political loyalties, regular political culture, standard political-racial-electoral voting patterns would seize the upcoming contest by the scruff of the neck and shake most of the promise of difference out of it.  Whatever is left is not just out of breath and spirit.  It is out of reach for new parties.  The realist in me delivers this word: foregone.  The optimist hangs on to another: when cometh the spoiler, three-seat kingmaker?  The analyst (there is a dirty word) digs this up: what about a difference maker.   Last, the pessimist broadcasts the outlier: how to detect the stealth/shadow parties that turned out to be PPP plants, thanks to bhai Bharat-ji?  Taken individually or compounded, next year (yeah, Trump’s shadow haunts), all electoral roads and results in Guyana lead to this terminal: shut up, select a box, sit down, and take a snooze.  Here is a hard number on the local electoral GPS and odometer: 15,000 or 20,000 at a stretch.  This is all that the clamoring crowd of educated, thinking, principled, concerned, angry, disillusioned, and damn-it-this will-not-be-taken-one-second more in Guyana can muster, represent, project, when all the hollering is done.  Yeah, but who is there to grab all of them in one shot, along with any stray votes?

At the extreme, 20,000 crossover or swing votes mean nothing but three seats.  Once the old, familiar commitments hold, and they will, razor thin becomes razor wire.  Somebody is going to get slashed, and it is not I.  A call must be made.  It hinges on two words starting with capital c and o. Corruption and oil. Corruption has savaged the spirits of those who care about such, ahm, ideals.  Corruption has besmirched the consciences of those who held onto theirs.  Oil is less focused on those who teef in their last reincarnation, and more on those who teef yesterday, will teef more today, and will be hijacking and bust the bank post-2025.  Reality: corruption and oil, and all in caps have PPP written all over them.  Time will tell how much Guyanese truly care, if they care anything about these two planks.

With the indigenous and Venezuelan votes conveniently held in abeyance in my own ballot box, the PPP should be the biggest loser in any election.  Corruption and oil are contributors.  One thing is certain, other than for some stragglers, the PNC will not benefit from the PPP’s loss.  Some new man of the moment could.  But where are the rest of the votes, where is the spoiler, difference maker, troublemaker, interferer, and even kingmaker role all rolled into one.  This will come to light, depending on the incentives offered by the standing local political mastermind and moneyman, Jagdeo.  Dish out some cash, and swooning could follow.  Guyanese need something, someone, to trust in this their Golden Age of Oil.  When a leader leads from the front, multitudes follow. Who knocks?

Those 15,000 or 20,000 votes waiting to parachute into a new and trusted camp could be entangled by indecision, the richness of too much choice.  Noise, too.  The new political groups could collide with one another, cripple the prospects of each other.  There is only one winner then: the PPP.  Whether the imagined swing voting bloc stays home or steps out is where 2025 stands.  Me, too.

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• diehards, Enthusiastic, fundamentalists, hard truths, nonexistent, Notwithstanding, tribalists

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