Guyanese populist democracy in action 

The surprising results of the September 1 General Elections, where the three-month-old WIN party upended the PNC/APNU to gain 16 Parliamentary seats to the latter’s 12, continue to roil the political landscape. This was graphically demonstrated in last Friday’s elections for the Chair and Vice Chair of the 10 RDCs. In Region Eight, where the PPP/C and WIN had each won seven seats to APNU’s 1, the latter voted for the PPP/C’s nominee, who then won the Chair. In Region 10, with the 18 RDC seats split into WIN’s nine, APNU’s five, PPP/C’s three, and FGM’s one, WIN was expected to easily capture the Chair, but with the PPP/C and FGM supporting the APNU candidate, the vote was tied at nine each.  With Local Government Minister Manickchand having a casting vote, this is expected to clinch the Chair for the APNU candidate.
These elections preceded the critical Region Four RDC one, where the PPP/C had 17 seats, APNU nine, WIN eight and FGM one. Clearly piqued after being blanked in Region Eight and 10 for the Chair and Vice Chair by the PNC/APNU and FGM support for the PPP/C, WIN decided to play the role of a spoiler for APNU and abstained from the vote. In a secret ballot, the PPP/C received one opposition vote to garner an unassailable 18 votes, emerging for the first time since the regional system was introduced in 1980 with both the Chair and Vice Chair.
What should be of interest to Guyanese are the reactions by the WIN leadership and some members of APNU, where their conceded talks towards cooperating against the PPP/C had broken down. The former was livid over what they consider to be “collusion” between the PPP/C and APNU to lock them out, while the latter were just as upset that PNC/APNU could support its historic PPP/C “enemy”.
But the political class as well as ordinary Guyanese should understand and appreciate that what played out at the RDC level will also become the norm in the National Assembly after the 13th Parliament is convened by President Irfaan Ali. The change in our demographics to obviate any inbuilt ethnic majority from one group to elect a party to office has evolved steadily since the 2011 elections to introduce a new populist fluidity into Guyanese politics. This has led to an increase of practices prevalent in other democracies, such as the US, one of which is labelled with a certain amount of disdain as “horse trading”. Here, there is hard bargaining between parties to support positions or candidates to deliver what are seen as “win-win” outcomes. In Region 10, for instance, PNC/APNU was clearly stunned by the encroachment of WIN into its traditional base. It was determined to prevent the “upstart” from securing an institutional platform in the RDC from which it could dispense largesse to further diminish its base.
A corollary from PNC/APNU’s decision to support the PPP/C, however, is that it does not see that party presenting a permanent challenge in the said base and has publicly articulated this view. This would be in line with its pre-election stance that gave short shrift to the PPP/C’s inclusive populist strategy that explicitly articulated and practised policies that incorporated all ethnic and social groups, especially African Guyanese, towards its goal of One Guyana. The PNC/APNU of Aubrey Norton, however, explicitly followed the exclusivist populist line promoted by Dr David Hinds of the vestigial WPA. This defines the African-Coloured sections as “the people”, arrayed against its implacable “enemy”, the PPP/C “elite”. WIN, the new kid on the block, from the beginning adopted the more traditional populist stance of seeking to organise those social groupings that feel alienated from the dominant political paradigm and parties as “the real” people against the latter “elites”.
While it did decimate the PNC/APNU base more, it also attracted a significant number from the PPP/C’s traditional Indian Guyanese base. The lesson for the latter is that its expansive approach will alienate some who still view politics as the old, pre-oil, zero-sum game where assisting the “other” diminishes their “share”. The bottom line is that the old political paradigm that emerged out of the colonial and Cold War eras has now been supplanted by a populist wave sweeping the globe. For a nation with deep historic divisions that are still relevant, horse trading is a practice that can lead to more stable politics.