…and cats
Robert Burns reminded us that, “The best laid schemes of mice and men / Oft go awry.” And we can see this unfolding so well with the sad but inevitable sidelining of the AFC by the PNC.
Ahhh…the AFC had it all planned out, didn’t they? They’d been launched, back in 2005, to exploit the “floating votes” they insisted existed in even Guyana’s ethnically polarised society.
These floating votes would come from all of the various ethnic groups in Guyana, and like Jagan more than a half-century before, when forming the PPP, they insisted those cleavages were bridged by the ethnic origins of their three founding leaders.
They’d been accused of receiving “foreign help” (including funding!) — a charge they never tried refuting, since it actually helped their cause by implying they had friends in high (and strategic) places! But be that as it might’ve been, they did get the most seats a third party had ever gathered in Guyana. Their supporters fervently believed they were going to be the “key to the change” – as they’d sloganeered.
They swore to support the two “big ones”– the PPP and PNC — in the “big house,” depending on whether their stands on issues were in the best interest of Guyana. So noble!! But, along the way, the AFC lost the plot — just before the 2015 elections. They decided to join up with the PNC — disguised as “APNU”. Now, why would they want to do that?
APNU accepted its lack of ethnic diversity when it began to court the AFC — which had picked up substantial support in Berbice, the traditional hunting ground of the PPP. But that “substantial” support was relative: they’d garnered just TWO more seats than they had done in 2006. They would’ve had to literally do a David on the PPP Goliath if they were to achieve what APNU said it sought — a government of national unity.
When the 2015 votes rolled in, going by the analysis of the polling station returns, the AFC had clearly lost ground; yet they went along with the “national government” spiel of the PNC/APNU. And this is where their best laid plans went awry. In their manifesto, they’d promised to bring in the PPP into the government, but chose Nagamootoo to take the lead!
It was like sending the rat to bring in the cat!! It was never going to happen. So, the inevitable did happen – just because the AFC “mice” wanted to pretend they were “cats” to drink all the milk. APNU knows AFC’s living a lie; AFC knows it’s living a lie.
And now they’ve been hung out to dry!
…and green
The National Trust just woke up to find Prezzie’s painting State House green! Your Eyewitness isn’t sure how that’ll play out legally…but he knows for sure there ain’t no one’s gonna be covering up that paint. Green, after all, isn’t just the colour of US greenbacks – it’s the PNC’s colour! That the PNC received greenbacks from the US back in the day to build its organisation is just coincidental! Burnham had already chosen the party colour.
Now this painting of State House – and the Office of the President and everything that’s nailed down! – with the PNC colour tells us a number of things. Firstly, the coalition business we spoke about above ain’t worth squat, since there’s no yellow for the AFC or whatever are the colours of the WPA and the one-man parties in the coalition!
And more, pertinently, the PNC means to be here for a long time!! By any means necessary!!
…being “disturbed”
Raphael Trotman says he’s “disturbed” the AFC candidate wasn’t selected to replace the vacant GECOM Commissioner’s slot. Does this mean the Cummingsburg Accord was breached? Or was it the Nassau Accord?
But whatever it is, your Eyewitness knows the fella had to “try a thing” after those revealing e-mails!!
