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Jan 06, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
How can there be a broad Left Front when there is no Left? From the PNC to the PPP, the Left in Guyana has left; they have abandoned ship and joined forces with the Right.
It hardly therefore makes sense to speak about a broad Left Front because even considering that this Front will comprise of persons and groupings that are not necessarily of the Left, it is a misnomer to speak about a Left Front when there is nothing left of the Left in Guyana.
The PPP is no longer a Left-leaning party. It is no longer even a Marxist-Leninist Party. Its constitution may speak to such orientations but in practice the PPP is controlled by a powerful economic class that is capitalist in nature and one that is predatory and ravenous in its desire to appropriate the wealth of the country.
Why then this absurdity of announcing that the PPP will go into the next elections with a broad Left Front? Is it a case that the PPP wants to broaden its support base but lacks imagination and vision to come up with the appropriate formula?
You cannot have a broad Left Front if there are no leftist parties. You cannot have a broad Front that comprises of only one Left-leaning party. And there are no Left-leaning parties left in Guyana.
The WPA was once a Left- leaning party. But no sooner did the Americans invade Grenada that the WPA capitulated to geographic fatalism: the idea that the Americans would never allow a Leftist government in the western hemisphere.
The WPA was more interested in its survival than in standing up for what it believed in. And so it jumped ship even before the ship was in danger. Long before the Cold War ended, the WPA rebranded itself Rodneyite, which is really as absurd as the PPP invocation of a broad Left Front, because Rodney was a Marxist, an unapologetic Marxist.
The PPP at least saw out the end of the Cold War without disavowing its ideology. It stayed faithful to its Marxist- Leninist credentials. But in 1991, with the prospects of political power dangled in front of the party and with the business community opportunistically ingratiating itself to the party, the PPP issued a statement indicating that the building of socialism was no longer on the cards. This was a tepid ideological retreat but a retreat nonetheless.
After Cheddi Jagan died and Mrs. Jagan’s presidency became untenable by her political opponents, the capitalist class made its move on the party, capitalizing on the ideological vacuum that had been created.
The party eventually capitulated to the business class but there was subsequently another coup within the party, which saw a new oligarchy comprising of just a few persons and entities use their tremendous financial resources and their closeness to the political directorate to commandeer control of the party.
When the PPP today speaks of a broad Left Front, it is not so much of an electoral strategy. The old leaders of the party are in effect attempting to retake the party. They are attempting to do so by claiming to be Leftwing. But are they really?
The PPP has become almost totally dependent on the new economic oligarchy for financial support. The party structures that, for example, allowed for fund raising were all neglected because the party was awash with resources from the new oligarchy.
The contributions from the new oligarchy, indeed from the business community, always come with strings attached. The business community does not support the PPP because they love the party or its ideology; the donations to the party’s electoral coffers are investments by the business community to secure favors in the future.
Traditionally, the PPP used to enjoy strong financial backing from its supporters within the Diaspora. But during the 2011 elections campaign that Diaspora abandoned the PPP.
A fund raising event held in New York turned out to a disaster. The leadership clearly understood then that it could no longer rely on its overseas supporters for any substantial assistance.
These supporters had either passed on or were aged; their descendants could not give a hoot about the new princes that controlled the party. This abandonment by a strong financial base pushed the PPP further into the clutches of the new oligarchy.
The idea of a broad Left Front will therefore not gain any currency unless the party begins to put distance between itself and the powerful economic class that controls it.
And based on the rumors that some leading party activists are being bankrolled by the new oligarchs, reclaiming the party for the Left is a near impossible task.
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