Groundhog Day is a critically acclaimed comedy film about a weary American weatherman caught in a time loop, repeatedly reliving mistakes and events.
It is based on a popular tradition observed on February 2, in the borough of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, when media houses visit the town for an annual weather “prediction” by “the world’s most famous groundhog,” called “Punxsutawney Phil.” The festival derives from the superstition that if the creature, basically a giant ground squirrel emerges from its burrow and sees its shadow due to clear weather, it will retreat and winter will persist for six more weeks; but if it does not, spring will arrive early.
Initially a modest success, the 1990s movie gradually gained fame with the term “groundhog day” now commonly used in the English language to describe a recurring situation.
With mounting tension over the delayed official results of Monday’s general and regional elections, worried Guyanese can be excused for seeing shadows, and thinking the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and the nation are locked in our own peculiar version of a destructive time loop of controversy and further uncertain weather, just as climate change increasingly threatens our fragile coastal existence.
The country’s two biggest and most bitter political rivals, the incumbent coalition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) dominated by the People’s National Congress (PNC), and the Opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), are in another close contest as predicted. With their mainly ethnic support bases apparently intact and loyal as ever, the pair are holding strong to the detriment of the smaller, newer parties that sought to bridge the widening racial divide, following the 2018-no confidence motion which eventually triggered elections just two months early.
In this, probably the most important polls in our history, we are sadly no closer to sharing power, or carrying out overdue Constitutional reform, leaving nearly half of our losing voters permanently disgruntled and mistrustful, even as their revered leaders appealed for calm and patience. If we are to avoid inevitable winters of discontent and the ensuing series of Arab Springs, the incoming administration will have to urgently move past empty pre-election promises and widespread amnesia, and introduce meaningful changes to our “winner-takes-all-system.”
Critical to credibility and elusive national unity, will be cutting corruption, and ensuring the proper and equitable management of the big purse of projected oil wealth from over eight billion barrels estimated by international giant, Exxon Mobil, following its 16th discovery on the lucrative Stabroek block northeast of the producing Liza field.
Outgoing Prime Minister, Moses Nagamootoo told the Venezuela-based Latin American media house, teleSUR, “The competition of power has taken a new dimension. One feels that there is this stake that oil money will make today a forever government, some say that this is not a political election for five years but for a 1,000 years. Petrodollars are playing a big part in this election.”
International observers have deemed the polls free and fair, but for the uneasy populace, life is certainly not free from fear with businesses once again tightly shuttered, schoolchildren at home and city streets desolate, as the most mundane public acts come to a standstill in a civilised society, while memories of past conflict and violence haunt us.
In the 2015 elections, the APNU managed to break the PPP/C’s 23-year-old vice on power, after it fielded a joint electoral list with the then promising, so-called “Third Force,” the Alliance for Change (AFC) managing 33 of the 65 seats in the National Assembly that led to the David A. Granger-Presidency.
A rounded number of 185 000 voters from Region Four participated last time, with nearly 114 000 choosing the newly-joined APNU/AFC as against the some 70 000 for the PPP/C. Overall that election was tightly fought with a mere 4500 estimated votes separating the victors from the main loser.
Last evening, as GECOM disclosed that the PPP/C is ahead in the Regional elections with over 52 000 of the votes, from eight declared Regions, analysts pointed out that the lead may prove difficult for the APNU+AFC to beat, even as returns remain outstanding from the prized Region Four, Demerara/Mahaica with the single largest number of voters, and Region Seven, Cuyuni/Mazaruni. At this stage, what role any Third Force may play is uncertain.
With less than a fifth of the polling stations counted up to press time yesterday, results show the PPP/Civic taking six out of the eight Regions reporting, with the results close in the marginal Region Eight, Potaro-Siparuni with a mere 45 votes separating the two main parties, as against the single vote that put the coalition ahead in 2015.
“The PPP/C lead may be difficult for APNU+AFC to make up in Region Four and Region Seven. In 2015, in Region Four, APNU+AFC registered 112,362 votes and the PPP/C 69,986 – a difference of 42,376 votes. If that trend holds, APNU+AFC would not be able to overtake the PPP/C. In Region Seven in 2015, APNU+AFC secured 4,533 votes and the PPP/C 2,973 votes for a difference of 1560,” Stabroek News (SN) reported last evening.
SN added, “The Region Four result is therefore anxiously awaited. However, the Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo terminated proceedings early last night saying that he was tired. Today, he fell ill and had to be rushed to the Georgetown Hospital. He was discharged and returned to work but a new controversy has erupted at the Region Four office in High Street over Statements of Poll and this has further delayed the process. The new controversy is being keenly watched by international observers and the political parties at the Ashmins building.”
Former Jamaican Prime Minister, Bruce Golding who heads the Elections Observer Mission (EOM) from the Organization of the American States (OAS) again advised that the Commission implement a technological solution which would allow for preliminary results to be available on Election Day or the morning after. He recommended the establishment of a central computerised results receiving centre, where election results summaries are periodically sent out from each Region to the Chief Elections Officer.
Guyana’s largely manual electoral system requires the transportation of electoral materials, including the statements of polls, by land, water and air to the Returning Officers in each of the 10 Regions and to the Chief Election Officer in Georgetown, for tabulation, verification and declaration of the elections results, Golding acknowledged.
The film Groundhog Day, is considered an allegory of self-improvement, stressing that happiness comes from placing the needs of others above one’s own. While the writers noted it was never intended to be anything but “a good, heartfelt, entertaining story” it remains a favourite of some Buddhists who identify with the themes of selflessness and rebirth. But in the Roman Catholic tradition, it is seen as a representation of purgatory with the star Bill Murray, as weatherman Phil Connors stuck in a personal hell. Guyanese would understand.
ID prays Guyana’s soul and peculiar time loop does not remain trapped as long as the Buddhist 10, 000 years to evolve to the next level.
