Crossover votes a prerequisite for winning elections in Guyana

Dear Editor,
I write to address one “substantive difference” identified by Mr Vincent Alexander in his reply (SN 10-13) to my earlier intervention, in which I proffered my views on the nature of our political impasse, which I stated arose out of our African- and Indian-Guyanese Security Dilemmas.
Vincent insisted that even if the African Ethnic Security Dilemma (AESD) had objectively been removed (the PPP no longer has an inbuilt absolute Indian ethnic majority), the subjective perception remains.
He wrote: “People have to be dealt with in the context of their reality, even if their reality is a false perception. It is their reality anyhow that will inform their behaviour and relations.”
I completely agree with Vincent; and, in fact, have often made this point by quoting the well-known “Thomas’ Theorem” in sociology: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”
The point, however, is those perceptions were formed historically either through the lived experiences of African-Guyanese or through their socialisation in families, schools, or formal or informal institutions; and those perceptions can be “unlearnt” through the same processes going forward.
Leaders in the African-Guyanese community have a big role to play in changing these perceptions to create possibilities for a less fractured politics. Take the results of the last three elections vis-a-vis the AESD. For what it is worth, I was one of those who had publicly advocated, from 2009 onwards, for the PNC to moderate its image to take advantage of the declining Indian-Guyanese population, thereby eroding the PPP’s absolute majority, which was the basis of the AESD.
In 2011, the PNC moved in this direction through a leadership change from a baggage-laden Robert Corbin to the more urbane David Granger. It then deepened this move by subsuming its name through coalescing with the WPA, GAP and some paper entities to form APNU. This move served to increase its stature in the African-Guyanese community by bringing in the moral capital earned by Walter Rodney. From 34.07% of the votes in 2006, as APNU they increased that to 40.81% in 2011. The AFC, meanwhile, had garnered 8.83% in 2006, and increased this to 10.3% by going frontally for the Indian-Guyanese vote in Berbice with Moses Nagamootoo on their ticket. AFC and APNU had then a majority in Parliament, and the PPP was able only to secure the presidency through the peculiar plurality rule of our constitution.
The next step – to coalesce with the AFC for the 2015 elections – might have seemed inevitable, but was facilitated by the new image of the PNC-as-APNU. And the APNU/AFC coalition did win the 2015 elections by securing 50.3% of the ballots.
What this demonstrated was the PNC could win elections if they moderated their stance vis-a-vis other ethnic groups, and were able to secure crossover votes, whether on their own or in a coalition.
While Vincent is claiming that these three elections are insufficient “evidence of ethnic political fluidity”, unlike David Granger’s PNC, the PPP has won the 2020 elections with – at maximum – their core ethnic base below 40% by encouraging that same “ethnic fluidity” that Vincent dismisses.
Leaders in the African-Guyanese community have to educate their core constituency that, through their ineptness (at best), David Granger and his coterie, who were handed leadership of the PNC, have only themselves to blame for frittering away the moral capital of Rodney’s legacy and the crossover Indian votes brought in by the AFC.
If leaders can take advantage of the new opportunities presented by the new demographics, Guyana can now practise the democratic politics of “in and out”, rather than the toxic one of “over and under”.
We will subsequently return to the other points made by Vincent, since this letter has probably already taxed our readers’ attention span.

Sincerely,
Ravi Dev