The PPP has learnt and will learn nothing from history

SEPTEMBER 10, 2015 | BY KNEWS | FILED UNDER FEATURES / COLUMNISTS, FREDDIE KISSOON

When a party loses a general election, the first commonsensical thing that follows is an in-depth discussion of what caused the defeat. Some casual explanations may be off the mark but nevertheless answers have to be looked for. The Republican Party in the US has long concluded that a softer approach on immigration and women, with a more inclusive approach to Blacks, would make for a successful clinch of the White House.

Many Labour Party leaders in the UK felt that Labour lost the recent general poll because it did not appear centrist enough under Ed Miliband. Small parties in coalition with bigger parties, with whom they have little in common, ideologically, were devastated in the last general elections in the UK and Germany. The leaders in the Lib-Dems in the UK and Free Democrats in Germany concluded that the electorate punished them because they did not achieve their goals in government and their identities were lacerated by their more dominated right-wing partners.

The UNC in Trinidad will have its moment of reflection on what went wrong under Kamla.

It is doubtful that the PPP kings and queens sat down with their intellectual supporters both in and out of Guyana and assessed the reasons for the loss of the majority in 2011. The PPP has long cultivated a culture of messianic greatness and therefore its leaders would have agreed with each other that some minor hiccup caused the 2011 defeat. It is the same psychological inflexibility in 2015. This time the defeat wasn’t caused by an inconsequential detail but by rigging supported by the global community.

Against this Freudian denial, the PPP will not have the polemical exchanges among themselves on the 2015 defeat.

All the signs are there that the PPP has learnt absolutely nothing from the two electoral shocks, its history in general, despite over sixty years of existence and thirty years in power, (PPP has served the longest in government, 1957-1964; 1992 -2015).

Perhaps the most compelling evidence that the party has learnt nothing, will learn nothing and still live with the deception of the messianic aura are its choices for the Elections Commission – Robeson Benn and Bibi Shadick.

It is really sad that Guyana has to live with these types of leaders in important positions of authority.

These are unpopular leaders of the PPP who have alienated large sections of the very constituencies from which the PPP draws its strength. Comically-styled Bruk-Up Benn, this former Minister while possessed with authority, earned a reputation as a strongman. Mr. Benn went into NCN station and ordered the removal from air of a calypso that poked fun at the Government. Mr. Benn was spared the wrath of the opposition during the 2015 election campaign because the opposition was too busy to highlight an issue that took place right in the middle of the campaign.

Some vendors were removed at Vreed-en-Hoop in typical Benn style. There are three other incidents with Benn that have caused me to dislike this man intensely, one of which is a confrontation in the Kaieteur News offices.

The least said of Bibi Shadick the better. Wouldn’t an organization want to put forward popular activists that would enhance its electoral chances? The answer is commonsensical and it is accepted by perhaps all organizations in the world except the PPP. The country is in for a treat – Bibi Shadick versus Steve Surajbally. What can be easily predicted is that Shadick will certainly alienate the Commissioners, the Chairman and the Chief Elections Officer.

The APNU-AFC coalition on hearing that Shadick was appointed must have jumped so high with joy that it got stuck and couldn’t come back down.

If the PPP hopes to win an election with an ethnic demography that hardly resembles the past thirty years then it is living in a fool’s paradise. And the PPP lives in such an illusory cocoon. One suspects that the PPP feels it can stay in the national discourse if it showcases leaders who come across as pugnacious. But what an insulting indictment of Indian people. The PPP fronts Jagdeo, Shadick, Benn, has Westford and Bheri Ramsaran in Parliament and still believes that Indian people will ignore the philistinism and vote for these non-performers then it surely doesn’t say much for the East Indians of Guyana.

In the 21st century, a political party can promote people that lack the elementary ingredients of social grace and all because of an ethnic commonality, will win the general election. I guess it works for the PPP but it certainly is a sad indictment of a race of people who vote for such a party.