After being advised that GECOM would be in a state-of-readiness for local government elections (LGE) by March 13, the Government of Guyana announced that the LGE would be conducted on March 13 itself. Last week, in a media interview, Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo opined that the Opposition parties – PNC, together with its poodle; the APNU and the AFC – are “mortally afraid” of the LGE. The PNC know that the LGE will decimate them, with them losing even more grounds in the local authorities and municipalities. The parties that they lead in APNU are not real political parties, being various one-man and one-woman entities that refer to themselves as political parties to give some legitimacy to a thing called APNU. The AFC, which had said before Valentine’s Day 2015 that they would be “dead meat” if they joined up with the PNC, did just that. Long before today, Khemraj Ramjattan’s prophecy had become reality. If the last LGE were not enough, the March 2, 2020 elections demonstrated to them that their destination is inevitable mass rejection.
With community outreaches already confirming mass rejection, the PNC, the AFC, and parties like the WPA have a real dilemma on their hands. The WPA have long lost the capacity to contest an election by themselves. A few hundred votes across the whole country today would be a mountain too high for them. The AFC know that the thrashing they would take in the LGE 2023 would be an additional mortal wound for them, merely confirming their “dead meat” status. But not contesting will mean they forever lose their political space in Guyana; it would be a formal funeral for the AFC. If they contest, the thrashing would be so massive that they would all end their political careers. It is a lose-lose conundrum for the AFC.
The PNC’s dilemma is even more dreadful. Should they contest, they will relegate themselves to small political party status, way down from the time they were considered a major political party. That the PPP will emerge even stronger in the PPP’s traditional stronghold is already conceded by everyone. But the PNC are likely to see themselves fighting in their own strongholds to fend off the PPP from making further inroads in places they traditionally were never competitive. Whether it is the traditional PNC stronghold of Buxton or Victoria, Linden or Dartmouth, Dem Amstel or Hopetown, New Amsterdam or Manchester, Mahdia or Georgetown, the PPP will win more votes in the LGE 2023 than they had won in these communities in any other election ever in Guyana’s history. The inevitable truth is starkly staring at the PNC at this moment. Contesting the elections would mean that the PPP would win beyond the 65% of the seats they won in the 2018 LGE. It would mean also that the just over 30% of the seats the PNC and AFC together were able to win in the 2018 LGE would be further eroded. The question is whether the PNC would be able to win in the high 20% range or the low 20% range. The prospects appear seriously dim.
Not contesting means the PNC losing control of Georgetown, Linden, Mahdia, various NDCs around the country they presently control. The hard question now for the PNC is which poison to choose – opt to be badly thrashed in the 2023 LGE that will relegate them into small party status, or give up control of the few municipalities and NDCs they now control. Their options are between bad and worse, between a rock and a hard place. This is already Aubrey Norton’s legacy. Everyday hard-core PNC members know that the mismanagement of the country between 2015 and 2020, the fiasco of the attempted steal of the March 2020 elections, and the disastrous leadership of Aubrey Norton have combined into bringing the PNC to the same place the AFC have found themselves – “dead meat” territory. Norton is leading the party away from their loyal supporters.
Hardcore members are leaving. Staunch supporters are finding a friendly and hospitable environment in President Irfaan Ali’s Government and the PPP. Wherever President Ali goes in the country, he is treated as a genuine rock star. Wherever Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo goes, he continues to be treated as a rock star, a reputation he had long before March 2020. This is the PNC’s and the AFC’s major dilemma. Having to compete with two rock star leaders in the PPP, the PNC and the AFC are dizzy, confused, and paralysed. Their confusion is compounded when they visit their strongholds and people merely ignore them.
It is why they are trying their best to find a way to stop the elections. The voters’ list is their target to stop the elections. The demand for a new house-to-house registration is the same strategy they used for the 1997, 2001, 2006 and 2011 elections. In 2007, they agreed to a continuous registration process for the Voters’ List. Now they disown the continuous registration that they pushed for in 2007. The unpalatable truth for the PNC and the AFC is there is no way out of their dilemma. It is a sheer lose-lose situation for them: Contest and be decimated, boycott and lose any control of NDCs and municipalities they still hold today. It is a deadly snake’s poison – artificially inject it or let the snake bite you. Either way, they face oblivion.
