Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 06, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
We like to take our cue from outside. It is a colonial legacy and something familiar to small societies where size strangles originality.
The latest source of local excitement is the proliferation of coalition governments that have resulted from general elections.
In Britain, a shaky coalition government has been cobbled together after last month’s general elections. It may not last.
In Suriname, former strongman Desi Bouterse has put together a coalition after no party secured a majority sufficient to command the government on its own.
But it was the situation in Trinidad and Tobago that created the greatest excitement, since a coalition of opposition parties contested the elections under the banner of the People’s Partnership and swept to victory.
The success of the Peoples Partnership has revived hopes that a coalition of opposition and civil society groupings can unseat the ruling PPP in next year’s elections.
These hopes may be misplaced, especially considering the failures of both post- and pre-election coalitions in Guyana.
The PNC combined with the United Force to unseat the PPP in the 1964 elections after the British departed with convention and asked the PNC to form a government.
That coalition was beset by problems and it was mainly due to the midwifery of the then United States Embassy that it survived until the 1968 elections campaign when Burnham made it clear that he would never again lead the People’s National Congress into another coalition government.
In the run-up to the 1992 elections, there was an attempt at a joint opposition slate. That joint slate never materialized.
In 2006, an attempt at a Third Force allegedly folded on the basis of one leader saying that he was told that another leader was signing an agreement at the US State Department for the second leader’s party to contest the election in an alliance with the PNCR. There was also in the 2006 election an attempt to form a Big Tent alliance, but this too failed.
Given this abysmal record, what therefore makes it even remotely possible that the opposition parties and civil society organizations will be able to come together in time for the 2006 elections?
The inspiration it seems comes from the success of the People’s Partnership in Trinidad and Tobago. There is some excitement that what happened in Trinidad can replicate itself here.
This is, however, not likely since there are important distinctions between the two situations.
Firstly, the electoral system in Trinidad and Tobago is different from the one in Guyana. Trinidad and Tobago is divided into forty-one constituencies and parties contest individual constituencies.
This does not necessarily make it easier to discount ethnic cleavages which predominate in both Trinidad and Tobago and in Guyana, but it does allow for marginal constituencies where victory can go either way.
In the recent elections, the so-called marginal constituencies were mainly swept by the People’s Partnership, which won not just the most seats but also a majority of the overall votes, something that was never achieved even by the now defeated PNM in its landslide victory in 2007.
In Guyana, the electoral system is in the main based on proportional representation, and in the last two elections in 2001 and 2006, the PPP commanded on its own over fifty per cent of the votes.
Any opposition coalition will therefore face a stern test in overcoming this formidable obstacle.
Many factors have been pointed as being responsible for the People’s Partnership victory at the polls. Gender, race, and class have been identified as factors responsible for the victory.
There is no doubt that all of these factors played a role in the ultimate defeat of the PNM but there were others which were ultimately the deciding elements.
A careful study of the results of the Trinidad & Tobago election reveals that the party of Kamla Persad- Bissessar would have won without the partnership. However, partnership ensured the landslide.
The attractiveness of the partnership rested on two developments. The first preceded the coalition and involved the removal of Basdeo Panday as the leader of the powerful United National Congress.
The UNC enjoyed a groundswell of popular support as a result of its shelving of Panday and the elevation of Persad-Bissessar as its leader.
This change in the opposition leader galvanized support within and outside the United National Congress.
The second decisive development was the nature of the alliance which aligned the middle-class Congress of the People and the United National Congress.
Bringing the middle-class in an alliance with the UNC forged a unity across ethnic and class lines, and is still responsible for the continued excitement that is reverberating throughout the twin-island republic.
Are the opposition parties and its supporters here willing to follow the same script? Will the main opposition party be willing to dump its leader in favour of someone who can enjoy widespread support in an alliance? Is the PNCR willing to make Winston Murray its next leader?
And will the middle-class Alliance For Change be willing to part with its ambition to become the next main opposition party in Guyana in favour of placing Winston Murray as the Presidential candidate of an all-opposition coalition?
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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