Buyers and sellers may be doing their best to put a brave face on it, but the available evidence would appear to suggest that the tidal wave of seasonal consumerism expected at this time of year is being put on hold by the November 28 general elections, now just over a week away.
Earlier this week both large merchants and small vendors alike were fretful about “the slow start” to the Christmas season, the result, they say, of a measure of apprehension over the likelihood of a period of post-elections tension.
It has become customary for Stabroek Business to take the commercial pulse of the business community from around mid-November, each year. Last year this time the seasonal trading was already well underway and business houses were hopeful that a lean year might at least be partially compensated for by a surfeit of Christmas-time shopping. Consumers had already begun to hit the shops in considerably greater numbers than were in evidence earlier this week. This year, there may not be a complete absence of commercial activity in downtown Georgetown but the streets and pavements are still bereft of their customary level of congestion and the pavement vendors appear not to have as yet begun to cash in on the customary seasonal immunity afforded them by the Georgetown municipality.
Those shoppers with whom the Stabroek Business spoke on Tuesday were surprisingly keen to talk about having to wait out the general elections before they could let themselves go – so to speak. It is not so much polling day that bothers them but whether the outcome of the poll will be met with a level of concord that will allow the country to slip virtually seamlessly into Christmas.
A woman who told this newspaper that she had come from Belfield on the East Coast said that no amount of assurance would prevent people from believing that the post-elections period might not bring an interregnum of tension to which the commercial sector was likely to react swiftly by simply “shutting down” as a precaution against street demonstrations resulting from post-elections controversy. In 2006 there was little post-elections controversy but the commercial sector still remembers the events of the elections of five years earlier. “The 2006 elections went okay; but you never know. It’s different every time,” she said.
Like some businessmen after her, the woman is advocating that elections be held “at another time of the year, not so close to Christmas”.
Another woman, who had brought her two young sons into the city for a look around, stopped examining a box of flowers in a Robb Street store to talk with us. She too felt that it was a case of politics getting into the way of Christmas. “It’s the season we enjoy the most; and the shopping is an important part of it. It is sort of unfair to us to have elections at this time.” Her attitude was that she wanted the period to “pass and go quickly” without incident.
Downtown merchants share the views of consumers. Their enthusiasm for seasonal trading appears to have been put on hold by the forthcoming polling, some counting the days between polling day and Christmas Eve Day to determine whether that will be a sufficiently generous window to allow for adequate trading.
The owner of a Regent Street store who has previously had to go through the additional costs of election-time security told Stabroek Business that “there has to be something seriously wrong with a country where a government cannot be elected without people having to feel so tense and concerned.” He noted the assurances given that the security forces will ensure that law and order is maintained but says that the fact that they had to make a point of saying so is “just a little worrying.”
Elsewhere in the city there is a more generous measure of optimism that within days of November 28 the tension will pass. “Nothing can put a damper on Christmas. Whatever happens people will be determined to enjoy the season and there will the usual shopping and merriment,” says a Regent Street businessman. He talks about the confidence in the business climate as evidenced in what he says has been “millions of dollars of investment in setting up new business places.” He points too to the fact that more goods are coming into local ports. “People are spending and this is Christmas,” he says.
This week there was no sign of tension on the streets though there was little doubt that November 28 stands very much between consumers and Christmas. It may be business, not as usual for this time of year, but business. On the other hand the commercial sector has always been quick to respond to the political temperature anyway.
