Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 01, 2011 Editorial
For the first time in its history the People’s National Congress Reform has had to undertake something akin to the Primaries in the United States to identify the person who would head the party’s elections slate. In the past, during the days of the charismatic leaders, there was no such need because the leaders towered over the supporters.
The ruling People’s Progressive Party is about to undertake a similar process to identify its leader. That party, too, would be selecting its elections leader from among a number of contestants. The charismatic leaders have also all passed on.
In the case of the People’s National Congress Reform, the candidates were paraded around the country, fielding questions from the rank and file about their plans to develop the country should they be elected. It was not a case of the party presenting any manifesto or plan and asking these people to defend that manifesto.
But even as these candidates were challenging for the leadership they were doing something that the political parties of old did— mobilise the people on the fringes. The result was that each candidate brought his or her support base from across the country. That party has made its choice.
In the case of the ruling party, the selection of the candidate would be done by the members of the Central Committee. These are 35 people who were elected when the party held its congress last year. These are the people who have been mandated by the wider party base to act on their behalf.
One would suppose that the ruling party has been in campaign mode ever since. The national leaders have been conducting fan out exercises to hear from the various communities and to correct situations. In the wake of the fan out exercises, the regional officials were mandated to conduct follow up exercises. Therein lies the strength of the ruling party on the political campaign trail.
But for all this, one cannot escape the resort to the kind of politics that has been dominating the landscape ever since the birth of the political party system. The parties tend to target characters and there is often an assassination of character or at least an attempt to do so.
For some strange reason, perhaps because of the sharp ethnic divide, campaigns are hardly ever about current issues. In the United States in a campaign that was widely televised one could not but help notice that the campaign was on the issue of the day—joblessness, the almost collapsed economy, the housing debacle that saw thousands losing their homes and the health insurance issue.
In Guyana the campaign is more concentrated on people and history. The irony is that the decision to revert to history or past events is often meaningless to the majority of the voters who are young people and who care less about things past.
In the run up to the 2006 elections, most of the campaign from the government point of view was directed at the 28 years of the People’s National Congress in Government. Many of the potential voters know little of those years because for the past nineteen years they have been living under the present government.
The People’s National Congress, on the other hand, had been attempting to deal with issues of corruption and marginalisation of one ethnic group. On both sides there was a play on ethnic insecurities.
Is anything likely to change this time around? There is the inflow of cash at this time that is allowing the government to undertake a wide range of projects, not least of all, the hydroelectric project that would bring cheap electricity to the homes and to opportunities for industrial expansion. The government is also going to talk about the various infrastructural developments but taking special pains to ignore the Skeldon Sugar Factory. And it has done a lot—the roads, the drainage programmes, the numerous education facilities, the medical facilities and the Olympic swimming pool.
The opposition is going to talk about victimisation, the waste of money and corruption. Such is the traditional nature of the politics in Guyana. And the man in the street would hardly pay attention because he has his own problems.
Would any party focus on the things that affect the daily lives of the people? That is what the campaign should be about.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
Apr 19, 2024
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