Explaining the election results

In my last Sunday’s column before the elections, I predicted, “…the PPP/C…will obtain a comfortable majority of some 36 seats with APNU 23, WIN 5 and AFC 1”. This meant that the PPP/C would increase its support from 2020, while the three-month-old WIN would perform very credibly by also pulling votes from PNC/APNU and AFC. It turned out that even after a recount demand by APNU in Regions Four and Five, the announced results confirmed that the PPP/C did in fact garner 36 seats, while WIN decimated the PNC/APNU even more decisively by gaining 16 seats to the latter’s 12 seats. The AFC was pipped by Amanza Walton-Desir’s FGM, which picked up the one seat from the old AFC demographic. PPP’s Irfaan Ali is again President of Guyana.
The thrust of my analysis, then, was fundamentally sound and bears repeating. I wrote: “The results of the 2011, 2015 and 2020 elections reflected the (altered) racial demographic shifts (created by differential racial emigration) with the PPP/C only securing the Presidency and Executive in 2011 with a plurality; the APNU/AFC coalition winning in 2015 by one seat brought in by the AFC, mainly from their Indian Guyanese supporters. APNU/AFC’s shuttering of four sugar estates with 7000 mostly Indian-Guyanese jobs lost cost them that constituency, along with the 2020 elections, to the PPP/C.
“The inflow of oil revenues by then, however, allowed the PPP/C to change the economic relations between racial/ethnic groups from a zero-sum game to a win-win one. They jettisoned Marxism as their guiding ideology and overtly accepted the salience of race in making political choices. They campaigned heavily in African-Guyanese communities – along with Amerindians – while pointing to their just-as-determined efforts to include them in economic development. The African-Guyanese community – especially youths – has responded positively in significant numbers. The APNU, however, which because of their historic minority status should have appreciated the importance of cross-racial votes, gave it short shrift. This might be so because election rigging had made it irrelevant. Tomorrow, the PPP/C will definitely pull a significant chunk of African-Guyanese votes, which would have traditionally gone to the PNC.
“One feature of Guyanese politics has been the presence of ‘third parties’ which assert they are the ‘true’ multiracial alternative to the PPP and PNC. However, they appear, burn brightly for a while, then fade like the WPA. This seems to be the fate of the AFC, which appeared in 2006 and pulled significant votes from the PNC when an ex-PNC African executive was head of its slate and from the PPP in 2011 and 2015 when an ex-PPP Indian executive was leading. Dissatisfaction with the larger parties and not “non-racial” voting appeared to have played out.
“For tomorrow’s elections a new “third force”—WIN—has replaced the AFC but with a twist. Unlike its ideologically driven predecessors, it has taken a totally populist approach to politics. While there are several variants of populism, there is always a maximum leader who claims to represent “the common people” against a corrupt elite – whether political, economic or social. Here, Azruddin Mohamed, who was sanctioned by the US OFAC, has had a meteoric rise, as his populist message to promise them all the things they want, combined with generous giveaways, bought out our self-defined scrapeheads underclass from the PNC, along with some of the traditionally disaffected members of other groups, including Indians. Even though the PPP/C has worked strenuously to develop Amerindian communities, their position as the most dispossessed and ostracised, combined with their transactional approach to politics, has given WIN’s populist strategy traction in their communities. It should be pointed out that one of the features of populist leaders is they do not speak in the bland, jargon-laden language of educated professionals but that of the underclass. Significantly, even the major parties have been forced to affect this language.”
It appears that dissatisfaction with the leadership of Aubrey Norton, who ironically had been selected as the leader of the PNC/APNU because he was seen as capable of mobilising the lumpen elements now defining themselves as “scrapeheads”, lost corn and husk because while refusing to bring them out, he followed David Hinds’ advice that it was not worth vying for Indian-Guyanese votes.
After losing his recount challenge, Norton should step aside for new leadership to rise in the PNC. WIN’s challenge as the new major opposition party will be to show they can curb the nihilistic impulses of their scrapehead base to function effectively in a Parliamentary democracy.