Victim and hero: a semiotic electoral performance

Dear Editor,
How does a man with no prior political experience, no established organisational structure, and no brand-name staff or allies defeat the mighty PNC (APNU) that has been at the height of Guyana’s political scene since 1955?
The answers provided thus far, though partially accurate, are all inadequate. Let us begin by reviewing them.
The number one explanation thus far is that Azruddin Mohamed (AZM hereafter) used his family wealth to underwrite the WIN campaign expenses. An associated argument is that he “financed” the votes by dishing out cash at WIN events. While the former is undoubtedly true, the latter needs more empirical evidence to substantiate how many of the 109,066 votes for WIN came through that path.
The second popular argument is that AZM was effective in listening and responding to the problems of the “poor and the marginalised”, so described. This explanation cannot stand a bare-minimum empirical test. The PPP/C Administration must have outdone AZM by the tens of thousands if one wants to focus on delivery of benefits (houses, water, schools, connectivity, agricultural inputs, small business grants, etc.). The PPPC administration engaged in literally thousands of outreaches over the past five years. I went on at least 50 of these, where the complaints and requests of citizens were noted and effectively dealt with.
The third offering is that people wanted change. While true, the argument does not explain why the PPP/C not only held its base but also increased its aggregate votes (by 4.62 per cent) and its margin in the National Assembly.
All of these arguments have a materialist component. By contrast, I think the rise of AZM/WIN can be better explained through semiotic analysis. Semiotics “is” the study of the sign. A “sign” is a highly technical concept. Let me explain.
A sign is made up of a signified and a signifier. A signifier could be a word, a sound, an image, or any expression that indicates (points to) something else. A flag, for instance, is simply an image that refers to a country. Deeper still, the flag is the signifier of a nation. When you see three letters strung together (to make a word) – dog – the word points to the animal we associate with the word, or the sound of it when spoken. Another word or sound could have been used to indicate the same signified idea (in this case the animal).
A key component of the sign is that the relationship between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary. Another word, sound, or image could have indicated the signified. A chain of signs constitutes a system of signification.
I am suggesting that AZM’s campaign was built on a simple but effective use of semiotic techniques. The strategy carefully constructed Azruddin in two ways: victim and hero. The victim part took the form of blaming the OFAC sanctions and the whole Lamborghini-GRA tax issue on the PPP/C. The hero part took the form of AZM posing for countless pictures that affirmed his philanthropic prowess and care for the poor.
This is what I shall call philanthropic populism. In this instance the poor are given things and are then recruited into a political movement. This political movement frames the world between good and evil, whereby the people (the poor) are mobilised to challenge the “establishment”, in this case the APNU and PPP/C. The leader of the anti-establishment movement can be anyone, with no prior experience, no track record, or no policy ideas. All he has to do is to constitute himself as a fighter against those with power. This can be done entirely through staged ground mobilisation, combined with image manipulation. Out of these two pillars will emerge a discourse of challenge and change, a story of the weak fighting the strong. In the “act of movement” (as Gramsci once characterised the Italian Resurgimento), the individual (AZM in this case) rises from man to leader.
We know that AZM hardly spoke even at the height of the campaign. There was no in-depth interview or press conference; the manifesto was half-baked; there was no Prime Ministerial candidate up to the last days before the election; there were no policy analysts, no experts, and no high-level endorsements. Instead you had Doggy, Fatta, and Primus – all loud, undisciplined, and warring. Most times the “Sanction-Man” just stood there, arms crossed. The iconic representation of AZM was, of course, “shortly, very shortly, very soon.”
I realise I am making two points simultaneously. Firstly, that a semiotic explanation is superior to those noted above in accounting for the dramatic rise of AZM and WIN. Secondly, that WIN employed many of the modern political techniques associated with the manipulation of the sign.
WIN’s performance is veritable proof that the politics of representation can equal the politics of providing information and is generally more effective than the politics of authenticity and truth.
AZM is from a billionaire family but managed to convince some of the poorer sections of the society that he has always been on their side. This, of course, is simply not the case. We must not forget also that while AZM was for posing with slick outfits and signature sunshades, Aubrey Norton, David Hinds, Vincent Alexander, Dexter Todd, Travis Chase, Dr Henry Jeffery and others from the old guard were still beating the drums of race, oppression, marginalisation, a supposedly bloated OLE, biometrics, house-to-house registration, and the like.
In contrast to AZM’s Armani suits and Ray-Ban sunshades, the nation saw Norton speaking in broken lines, stuttering incoherently, sometimes getting the date of the elections wrong, and at other times forgetting where he was. And still at other times, straggling upstairs to a podium, bereft of energy or conviction.
Azruddin Mohamed is where he is today not only because of money or because of discontent in some sections of the society. Rather, the combination of philanthropic populism and “semiotic performance” must also be given serious attention. This is more important now than before, because the method that got AZM where he is will likely be built out into a comprehensive system of continuous mobilisation through staged performances.
You may rightfully ask – what is AZM a signifier of? My answer is that he is an ambiguous sign (symbol, more accurately), somewhere between victim and hero, but also between an “outlaw” and an incompetent buffoon. Stuart Hall might have called him a “floating signifier”.
AZM should be careful, however, because the fact that signs can be taken for wonders (Bhabha, of course) can only last so long. The gold of the imagination could quickly dissolve into the lead of reality.

Yours sincerely,
Dr Randy Persaud