When it comes to the PNC, you’d think the AFC leaders would’ve wised up by now. But what can you say? Looks like they’ve either been stricken by Stockholm Syndrome or suffering from congenital masochism!! When, before the 2015 elections, Granger and the PNC started wooing them and their seven seats gleaned from the PPP’s Indian-Guyanese base, leader Ramjattan exclaimed, “No way, Jose!! We’ll be dead meat!!” But yet he went along, thinking that the “Cummingsburg Accord” the PNC signed would make them keep their word!! And lo and behold, dead meat they became!!
Now, if for decades the PNC didn’t respect the Constitution – even the one they wrote, supposedly a contract between them and the people of Guyana – why in the world would a big man, and a lawyer to boot, take their word that they’d do the right thing?? So, the Cummingsburg Accord becomes toilet paper to clean the sh*t dumped on Ramjattan and Nagamootoo for the next five years by the PNC!! Towards the end of their humiliation, the AFC went on their lonesome at the Local Government Elections (LGE), to test the waters; but received such a drubbing they had to rush back into the arms of the PNC to save face, and claim with a straight (even though bruised!) face they were an “Opposition Party”, whose doings would then receive some coverage in the press.
Well, they’re still in the wilderness, and while insisting that they “wuz robbed”, they’re trying to make up their minds whether to contest the next LGE, that’s been scheduled for March 13, 2023. First, Ramjattan bloviated that no way in hell would his party contest – since the Voters List was “bloated”. But before the day was out, he did a complete somersault – which can’t be easy at his age!! He’s now hanging on to the PNC’s coattails, and will go along with their decision on participation!! Now, the question is whether the PNC need a party that’s lost the only charm it ever had – those wayward PPP voters!!
Nagamootoo has completely disappeared from the scene, and Ramjattan has done nothing to bring back the disgruntled sugar workers they’d sweet-talked into supporting the AFC.
In the meantime, the PPP hasn’t been idle!! It’s using the benefits of incumbency to dole out reliefs not only to sugar workers and their base, but that of the PNC, and their outliers who’d tested AFC’s waters with Trotman!! The AFC’s only hope is not to be dumped by the PNC – which will contest the LGE so that they’ll have some leverage in Georgetown, Linden, and New Amsterdam. Can’t afford to lose corn and husk, can they??
In the meantime, the PPP Juggernaut keeps rolling full steam ahead!!
…in China??
It’s time for the Chinese leadership to decide whether it is fish or fowl – capitalist or communist. Mao didn’t leave any doubt he was a communist, and didn’t mind millions dying in his Great Leap Forward, because he thought communal labour of the masses could substitute for machinery – so China WOULD produce more agricultural and industrial goods simultaneously. Unfortunately, they ended up with a great famine, and lost corn and husk!!
Mao then launched his Cultural Revolution as he regrouped to again take centre stage, but created urban chaos and mass deaths and upheavals. After Deng changed course in the 1980s with his pragmatic “use whatever cat once it caught mice”, China saw unrivalled progress. Now Xi Jinping looks like he’s not comfortable with the inevitable consequences of capitalist development and billionaires in the party. The humiliating treatment of former President Hu Jintao of the old guard signalled a house-cleaning.
With his third term, can he take them on without bringing down the house??
…in the PNC?
The now-not-so-new PNC leader also can’t make up his mind on the strategy to be used to return to power. Assuming he’s not thinking of some armed onslaught, how’s he gonna beat the PPP at the polls if he alienates “outsiders”??
