…about our politics
There appears to be something schizophrenic about the PNC’s politics nowadays. After insisting for fifty odd (very odd!!) years that it was “multiracial”, in 2015 it fessed up that it really wasn’t. Of course, it had the odd (very odd!) members from other ethnic/racial groups, but by and large, they were quite monochromatic. The new leadership represented by Granger and his army cohorts figured they couldn’t keep up the façade any longer. Maybe army types are trained to be a bit more hard-nosed in reconnoitring a terrain??
By then, the PNC had already decided that the answer to the question “what’s in a name?” was “PLENTY” – when the name was PNC!! Based on its history, the PNC represented treachery (betraying the nationalist cause for a deal with the colonialists); disloyalty (jettisoning its partner, the UF, which had provided the numbers to get into government in 1964); discrimination (jobs only with a PNC party card); incompetence ( “square pegs in round holes” invented to describe their appointments!); clueless (wrecking the economy); and vicious (murdering Walter Rodney) etc.
They changed their name in time for the 2011 elections to “A Partnership for National Unity (APNU)” under the “outsider” David Granger. They’d corralled 4 “parties” that collectively had barely secured a single seat to Parliament since 1992. They insisted that “National Unity” was now achieved!! By 2015, they rethought their assumption and worked out a coalition with the multiracial AFC – which had secured some 10% of the votes at the 2011 elections. After their 2015 razor-thin victory (4000 votes/1 seat!) they claimed NOW they’d achieved “national unity”!!
Now, with the AFC, at best, they might’ve pulled over let’s say 6% votes from the PPP base?? Now how could that make the coalition a “national” coalition?? But you’d think they’d at least put on a pappy show to lull the unwary, wouldn’t you? But no…the schizophrenia was manifested when instead of at least ACTING in a national fashion to encompass all Guyanese concerns, the coalition, shut down 4 sugar estates and threw 7000 workers into the breadlines!!
And they did this when even the CoI they’d appointed to make suggestions on the way forward for the sugar industry recommended otherwise!! But hold it!! Maybe they’re not schizophrenic at all! Maybe they’re just practicing real-politik after the AFC didn’t even murmur a word of dissent, much less protest the sugar closure!! Their mouth had been muzzled by the 50% salary increase and the perks of office!!
The question is, now that the Guyanese people have seen through the charade of the PNC’s “multiracial” pretentions, will they revert back to their real name for the next elections??
P(unishment) N(ever) C(eases)??
…on qualification for voting
The PNC jumped on the H2H limb to delay the NCM-mandated elections. But of course, like with their “half-man” ploy to define “majority” on their other limb, they came up with a “reason”. They claimed the present NRR and OLE which were used for last year’s LGE was “bloated” with some 200,000+ names.
But if a new NRR (from which the OLE is extracted) was created from the H2H registrations, a whole lotta folks were going to be “deregistered”: they wouldn’t be there to be registered. Trouble was, folks warned the PNC that because residency wasn’t one of the requirements for voting, the process would be invalidated if a single name were removed? And, of course, that’s what Justice George ruled!
But a lot of people might still be removed during the Claims and Objections period. Art 159 (3) states folks who’re insane or of unsound mind can’t vote.
Isn’t this what the PNC’s doing by dragging out the elections date after the NCM? How much more of this can we take?
