Let’s face reality in Guyanese politics, shall we?? While the PNC’s doing its darndest to convince us it’s part of a “coalition” – the APNU/AFC duo — APNU itself is like a Russian Babushka Doll: it is supposed to be a coalition of FOUR PARTIES, with the PNC being just another party from the hood!! Trouble is, none of those parties – separately or collectively! – can muster more than a handful of votes – generally, from friends and relatives!! Granger exposed the enormity of the PNC’s cynicism when two of the paper parties departed and he unilaterally declared that a member from each had immediately created two new parties and become members of the “APNU Coalition”!!
As far as the Guyanese populace is concerned, the ploy of a “coalition” to hide the PNC’s gruesome nakedness is less convincing than even the proverbial “fig leaf”!! With a past as colourful as the PNC’s – your Eyewitness wishes to be kind, he understands their need to hide their warts – for the tactic to work, there’s gotta be some kind of colourable cover!! Which just ain’t here! It’s like when small kids cover their eyes and think people around them can’t see them no more!!
But, make no bones about it, the PNC ain’t no empty paper bag. Ever since the sixties – jumping past the rigging years – they’ve been able to get a solid 40% of the electorate. Nothing to sneeze at!! But maybe that’ll soon be coming to an end. The PPP General Secretary just declared what everyone and their uncle already know: the PPP are going all out to capture the municipalities that were long seen as “PNC strongholds”!! And, of course, also the NDCs. Wasn’t no secret in view of the forays into PNC “traditional” constituencies!! The PPP weren’t going there for the breadfruit!!
The PNC like to boast that they’re for “power sharing”. But the PPP GS reiterated his party’s old, long-held position on the issue: the PNC only want to hold “executive” offices. When it comes to power sharing, coalitions can’t be opportunistically proposed when out of office, but jettisoned the moment they get in!! As the VP, who, as General Secretary, is responsible for party business – including elections – knows, with kith and kin in the key state institutions, the PNC’ll be running the Government!! Remember the GECOM caper??
The VP also reiterated that the trust that’s necessary for such power sharing just ain’t there. Not surprising, when the PNC leader lets calls for an insurrection by the army go unchallenged!! If you wanna know what executive power sharing gonna lead to, just look what happened when the Opposition Leader is given the power to veto appointments of the Chancellor and Chief Justice!!
Gridlock!!
…and FDIs
Ever since colonial times, we were convinced we needed foreign direct investment (FDI) to “develop”. Money makes the world go round, and we didn’t have no money. We had resources, we boasted, so we needed money to extract and develop them to bring in money and higher standards of living. Our own Caribbean Noble Prize-winning economist Arthur Lewis pushed the idea.
Burnham, however, had his own ideas – or rather, ideas he cogged from Uganda’s Nyerere’s “Ujaama Socialism”. FDIs would “recolonise” us!! Burnham thought he was clever to’ve just changed the name to “cooperative socialism” to make it “original”!! Anyhow, we know that folly collapsed ignominiously. His successor, Hoyte, dumped the co-op idea and tried to attract FDIs. He didn’t do too well, and it took the PPP 23 years to get things back on an even keel. So, here we have the PPP back in the saddle, after a disastrous PNC 5-year interruption.
And now we have our own FDI spigot from our NRF – thanks to oil!!
…and debt
Back in the day, folks taking credit from a storeowner were said to’ve bought the items “on trust”. They had to’ve been trusted by the merchant for credit to be given. Nowadays, do merchants “trust” the poor??
