The AFC has inflicted a very serious wound to the likelihood and fate of any third party in Guyana. It took 40 years (after the death of Walter Rodney and the weakening of the WPA), for Guyanese to build the trust in another third party. Yet in just about two years, the AFC has severely hampered the chances at any third party regain the confidence of the Guyanese public. The AFC has even weakened their own chances of attracting the support of new persons, and worse yet, the trust of those whom were once able to convince.
This is not a hallow assumption, we have proven this scientifically. As the United Republican Party (URP) fans out across Guyana in an effort to introduce ourselves to the voters, the constant refrain is “Are ya’ll going to join up with de PPP or PNC like what AFC did?” Not one of our public events or bottom house meetings finishes without someone reminding us of the betrayal of trust that the AFC has deposited in the minds of the swing voters in Guyana.
The URP remains hopeful, however, and it would be less than truthful for me not to admit that what the AFC has done to retard the hopes of any third party in Guyana, is seismic. We are convinced that in order for the URP to win, we have to appeal to the non-racial, non-partisan and non-ideological better spirits of the objective Guyanese. Guyana is way too racially divided and politically ideological for us to expect that voters would be inclined to vote mainly on issues. The jumbies of both Burnham and Jagan are too strong for the voters in Guyana to not be wooed, especially when the PPP and PNC party leaders begin to invoke the spirits of these dead men.
(By the way, Guyana is the only country in the Caribbean that still votes for dead people. Let that sink in for a moment. Cuba and Venezuela are probably our two closest neighbors who follow that practice of party leaders invoking the dead, to win elections. Actually, the practice is steep in communism and dictatorship.)
Like I was saying, the AFC was able to do what no other third party was able to do – they won a sizable amount of seats in parliament. Not even the WPA that was around for such a long time, with such a popular leader, was able to do what the Alliance did. And they were effective because the Guyanese people were literally fed-up with the PPP and the PNC. The founders of the Key-party tapped into a frustration that the Guyanese both locally and in the diaspora were experiencing. There was great push-back when the AFC executive decided to enter talks of forming the Coalition. Many felt that the PNC would swallow up the AFC. Some suggested that the PNC members in the AFC would side with the PNC during tough negations. Others voiced their opinion that the AFC would lose their fresh independence of thought. Now, two years into the deal, all those fears are being realized. The AFC has shrunken into a struggling party, made up of mostly Government ministers. They have lost their core supporters, particularly the PPP members whom they once attracted. Their sheer spineless inability to maintain their raison d’être is now forcing their worried backers to call for their unhitching from the PNC. We all know that that will not happen; the decision makers in the AFC are all ministers of in this PNC Government. The AFC has severely damaged the chances of any third party but all hopes are not lost.
The electorate entrusts us politicians with a level of credibility to look after their best interest. They listen to us as we spill our rhetoric on the plans we have for them based on their electing us. We even go so far as to threaten them by claiming that if they vote for our opponent, their hopes will be dashed and their lives will become a mess. And from time immoral the electorate has believed us. And except for a very few of us, we squander the trust that the electorate places in us. Take the latest political storm that is swirling between the PNC and the AFC, particularly with regards to the arbitrary selection of the aged GECOM chairman. The coalition promised us that they would not be dogmatic, undemocratic and authoritarian or tone deaf like the PPP. And for the most part, the voting public believed them. And in droves, the masses voted to break a 23-year grip of the PPP over the country. Even though the PPP/C used all the state assets available to them; even with all the monies that the PPP/C got from businesses and individuals that they had enriched of the years, the Coalition still pulled off an upset victory. But what has happened since that faithful May 2015 event? We have watched in objective horror as the Granger administration succumbed to the exact ills that we saw in the PPP. Over the last two-plus years, the country has observed that what they have voted for is a different kind of the very same type of politics. The victimizations, the shady deals, the single sourcing, the personal enrichments using state funds, the positioning of the electoral system and state assets to favor the incumbent and the list of non-patriotic evils go on and on. Ever since the President chose to hastily select the retired Justice James Patterson, there have been calls for the President to rescind the, politically charged and nationally divisive, act. But the President, who was elected based on the nation’s best desires, has refused to budge. Mr. Granger simply refuses to do what just about every objective commentator is pleading with him to do. It is quite obvious that – even in a democracy – he does not care what the massed thinks. Even within the Coalition, we see personal emails – from the top brass of the AFC – suggesting that this decision does not make for peace and harmony in this divided country. With the leaking of the emails, we see that the United Republican Party (URP) and the hundreds of other national peace-loving voices were not all wrong and unpatriotic, as the PNC cronies were making us out to be. The fake news was that the PNC was spewing is that the AFC was all in support of this divisive action of the Head of State. Now that the behind the scene facts are rolling out, we have all been proven right in our united call for a squashing of this GECOM appointment. However, like I began to say, the PNC and PPP politicians seem to revel in their ability of squandering the trust that the electorate places in us. It is obvious that Guyana is swiftly becoming – if we have not already become – an elected dictatorship. However, the electorate is gradually becoming wiser, Thank God!