Delivering his contribution to a PPP congress about a decade ago, Mr. Clinton Collymore, executive member of the PPP, was rewarded with much applause when he said that the PPP would be in office for a thousand years. Perhaps he did not properly appreciate the origins of the prediction or the likelihood and consequences of a regime being in office for so long. Nevertheless, the PPP has lasted in government nearly twice as long as Adolph Hitler’s Third Reich, about which the original thousand year prediction was made. But the fortunes of the PPP have changed so dramatically that should Mr. Collymore or anyone make such a statement today to a similarly sympathetic PPP audience, they would be laughed out of court.
It is precisely this changed reality that has led to the prorogation of parliament. Indeed, one position on the PPP’s prorogation (to which I do not adhere) is that the president and his party are now in such a bad electoral position that they are simply hanging on to what the president considers, and what the Blue Caps in their have press release have said, is the “five-year democratic mandate to which he was justifiably elected to serve in executive office”, and hoping for the best.
Of course, the Blue Caps position on the five year democratic mandate of the president is unsound. Neither the president nor the National Assembly has an unqualified right to five years in office. The proposed no-confidence vote that the PPP sought to avoid and its chosen way of avoiding it make this point quite clear.
Maybe the above-stated position, which projects an abysmal self-interestedness, can more or less be discounted. But if, as we must, have a future relationship with the PPP, we should attempt to fathom the reasoning behind its action if we are to properly chart our individual and/or collective responses.
In my opinion, once the proposers of the no-confidence motion remained adamant that they would proceed with it, the point of no return had been reached and elections became inevitable. It was then only a matter of timing, and thus some of the important factors that contributed to the PPP’s decision to prorogue are relatively clear.
The PPP assessed firstly, that if the no confidence motion was passed at that time, it would not be able to maximize its chances at the resultant general elections, secondly, that it would be in a much worse position than that which could result from the likely fallout following prorogation, and finally, that it might be able to capitalize on opposition mobilization against its provocative action of proroguing.
The PPP does not believe that elections in February 2015 would have been to its advantage. Campaigning over Christmas would not be good for the business sector that, for the most part, has been in its corner. Also, elections would frighten away the many Guyanese who normally vacation here, helping to brighten the Christmas of their families. When these factors are coupled with the fact that after voters have had had their holiday fun, they would have to come face to face with the cost of their festivities and the reality of their poor condition, February (and even the period around Mashramani) would not be a good time for the PPP to be holding elections.
If timing was indeed the problem, a competent government would have been able to negotiate when the no confidence motion was voted on and hence when elections would be held. But we have learned since 2011that the PPP does not voluntarily negotiate, and certainly would not have negotiated with the AFC, whose motion it is.
The party opted for prorogation, but in doing so it may well have set the stage for the creation of the very instability over the holiday season that on the face of it, its action was partly intended to avoid. But we need to be somewhat cautious here, for the PPP must have realized that its prorogation and flimsy public justification would raise a hornets nest in opposition circles.
Much as I do not agree with Mr. David Granger’s essentially parliamentarianist approach, it did not allow the PPP the kind of room it required for its kind of ethnic mobilization. While publicly suggesting that the Christmas holidays is not a good time for campaigning and elections, the party might be hoping that its recent provocation will lead to the kind of opposition activities that it will be able to ethnically exploit.
With the holidays coming, the opposition is caught between a rock and a hard place, but perhaps the PPP has miscalculated somewhat. It believes that it will be able to exploit the existing public belief that all is fair in politics and that it will be able to sell the prorogation to its traditional supporters as a demonstration of its capacity to politically outwit an incompetent opposition.
But I think that many of its supporters now expect a vigorous response from the opposition because they believe that the PPP has gone too far. The party has therefore unwittingly increased the opposition’s space for radical mobilization.
The fortunes of our political parties have so far been determined by a marginal shift in voter preference and while the PPP may be able to convince the majority of its supporters of the soundness of its position it will probably not be able to convince a significant minority.
It is obvious that avoiding elections at this stage would also provide the party with additional time to hand out some placatory goodies: repairing a few more roads and herding people who because of our political condition remain in poverty, into lengthy queues to get back some ($10,000) of their tax dollars, claiming that this shows that the PPP cares. People have the right to take the money but it is amazing that after more than three years in office, this valueless (in terms of scope and measurable outcomes) programme appears to be the flagship of the Ramotar regime!
In short, elections in early 2015 would not have been to the advantage of the PPP and it prorogued parliament essentially to determine the timing of the elections, which will now probably be held by the middle of the year. I believe that the results of those elections will prove a major disappointment to the historic Mr. Collymore.
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
