…go quietly?
Now that the jaws of defeat are finally and inexorably closing in on Granger and his PNC, most Guyanese are wondering ‘what next?’ A number of businessmen have signalled their thoughts by boarding up their showcases. They obviously have experience with the PNC losing elections in the past; “sore losers” don’t even begin to describe them!! More like rabid, delusional berserkers – minus the induced trance: they just cold-bloodedly rampage down commercial areas, creating mayhem in their wake.
But your Eyewitness doesn’t think that’ll happen this go- round. Not because some in the PNC don’t want it, but because they’ve strung out their supporters for too long about winning this thing. The base is drained! How’s the PNC going to provoke them to act out when their leader David Granger just gave them a four-step process that was guaranteed to deliver victory? The four steps were executed just as he said, but his supporters were left holding “wood”!
Was Granger so confident that Claudette Singh was going to destroy her entire lifetime’s work just to get even with the PPP for supposedly slighting her? Hell hath no fury like a Jurist scorned?? Such sexists!! If he had hoped that that would happen, at least he could’ve given her a hand that she could play with a straight face!! He already knew she couldn’t swallow the Mingo manoeuvre over at Ashmin’s, so why’d he think she’d fall for the patently ridiculous objections about dead men and immigrants voting? She gave the PNC more than a fair shake to help them out; it was just that they refused to help themselves. Even the Lord doesn’t ask for less!!
But we return to the question du jour: Will the PNC go quietly into the night, or will they rail and scream and have to be dragged clinging on to power by their nails??
What do they have left? They have cussed out the US and the Western powers that had helped ensconce them into office back in 2015. They cussed out the Commonwealth, even though a fellow Caribbean sister was at the helm. They spat nastily at Caricom, which had helped them out in 1998, when they’d stamped their feet and refused to depart. Of the OAS, the less said the better! They’re now busy reaming out Claudette Singh for betraying them at the 11th hour.
The PNC is clearly out of friends, even those businessmen with deep pockets who’d expected to game those big infrastructural contracts in the offing. They would now be busy figuring out how they could inveigle their way into, if not the hearts of the PPP, at least into their checkbooks!!
But even dead frogs give galvanic twitches!!
…dump Granger??
Between 1968 and 1992, the PNC wrecked Guyana so thoroughly that no one – especially their supporters – was spared. “White mouth” became the new normal. And yet, when the 1992 “free and fair” elections were over, the PNC received 42% of the vote – their historical percentage!! The same phenomenon was repeated these last elections.
This means the PNC ain’t going nowhere: they have a stubborn core of loyal followers – just like the PPP has. After the PNC’s defeat in 1992, they stuck with Desmond Hoyte till he passed away a decade later. His successor Robert Corbin didn’t fare any better in the second decade, and he decided to hand the leadership over to David Granger. He read the cards right, and figured a “kinder and gentler” successor – David Granger – might improve the party’s performance.
But he’s proven to be an old man, clearly out of step with the times, and he’s served his decade. Your Eyewitness figures the PNC’s gonna have to throw up a successor pronto.
Or witness a bloody war of internal succession.
…clean the Augean Stables??
Granger has set land mines for the new PPP Administration by staffing the bureaucracy with all those bemedaled old boys from “army days”.
Can we hope they’ll do the honourable thing and resign??
