Both of the main parties achieved their objectives

Jun 14, 2023 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – The APNU must not forget its manners. It should immediately dispatch a “thank you” card to Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo for administering the shock therapy which the APNU needed to revive its political fortunes.

The PNCR is the only substantive party within the APNU. As Local Government Elections loomed, the PNCR appeared badly wounded.

Having already suffered the fallout from the attempt to rig the 2020 general and regional elections, the party was further splintered when there was a successful mutiny against the then leader, David Granger, forcing him into political retirement. The party also suffered internal rifts and rows which left it lame.

So badly maimed and weakened was the PNCR that it was unable to field candidates in 55% of the overall number of constituencies. This meant that the PPP/C had effectively won the elections even before the people went to the polls.

The PNCR’s campaign was anemic. It struggled to attract large crowds at most of its meetings and there was general disinterest within its support base.

But the PNCR was to be have a miraculous revival thanks to none other than Bharrat Jagdeo, facing a barrage of criticisms and becoming entangled in controversies over its handling of the oil and gas sector and the sale of the Marriott Hotel, the PPP/C went on a political counteroffensive, seeking to respond to any and every criticism.

Jagdeo took it upon himself to be the chief whip against anything emanating from the Opposition Leader. He became so obsessed with the Leader of the Opposition that he began hosting one-man press conferences every Thursday simply to respond to whatever the PNCR has said at its press conference of the same day.

Given the fact that the PNCR was an utterly discredited force leading into the local government elections, Jagdeo unwittingly was giving more attention to the PNCR than it deserved.

In so doing, he breathed new life into the PNCR’s local government campaign. He did so in two respects.

First, he played right into the hands of the APNU. The APNU decided that it had to mobilize its supporters around the theme of trying to prevent PPPC domination. By his divisive drivel, Jagdeo effectively played right into the fears of the PNCR supporters who were concerned about the PPP/C making a clean sweep of the elections. This helped to galvanize the PNCR’s support base around their APNU.

Second, Jagdeo’s divisive attacks on the Opposition agitated the supporters of the PNCR just as it had done in the 2015 general and regional elections when the PPP/C lost to the APNU+AFC. By being so venomous and divisive against the PNCR, the Vice President actually helped to rally support for the APNU.

The PPP/C will have to make a decision about just who determines and dictates its campaign tactics. This has to be collective responsibility and should not be left or to be perceived as being the responsibility of one-man. You cannot run an election campaign as a one-man show.

Nonetheless, both the PPP/C and the APNU should feel satisfied that they achieved major objectives in the local government polls. For the APNU, its strategy was to hold on to its strongholds. It concentrated its resources in this area and it managed to comfortably retain control of the to the municipalities of Georgetown, Linden and New Amsterdam.

The PNCR however should be concerned about the tie in Bartica and in Mahdia. These are also traditional strongholds of the PNCR which it had previously won in the 2016 and 2018 Local Government Elections. Despite these setbacks and the fact that it lost more than 75% of the local government areas, the APNU achieved its principal objective of going into the elections.

The PPP/C did the same.  It swept the polls winning more than 75% of the local authority areas.

Every party goes into an election hoping to win. But as Jagdeo mentioned yesterday, the PPP/C had to be realistic. It could not have expected to have won the municipalities of Georgetown, Linden and New Amsterdam. But it had to give it a fair shot, which it did.

At this stage, it is difficult to determine stage whether the PPP/C made serious inroads into the PNCR’s strongholds. The metric which Jagdeo used was the increase in votes for the PPP/C in PNCR strongholds. But in order to better assess the PPP/C’s showing in the PNCR strongholds, one would need to know the comparative increase in votes for the PNCR, the overall voter turnout and the constituencies from whence the PPP/C’s votes originated.

The PNCR however owes a debt of gratitude to two persons. The first is Jagdeo. Had he not become so obsessed with busing-out the Opposition, there would have not been any revival of its fortunes and the PNCR’s base would not have been galvanized. Jagdeo played the wrong card.

But there was also a last hour intervention which helped the APNU. Former PNCR leader, David Granger, came out with a powerful and well-argued endorsement which detailed the PPPC’s lack of commitment to local democracy. The PPP/C had no answer for this last-minute salvo from the retired Brigadier. And when the PPP/C is silenced, you know that the APNU’s supporters will be alert.

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

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• APNU, Bharrat Jagdeo, Local Government Elections, PNCR, Vice President

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