It was known since 1950 by the youthful PPP leaders that only a united political movement could dislodge the colonial forces which were in control of British Guiana. Thus, they created a PPP uniting anti-colonial forces from all strata of society but most importantly from the two main ethnic groups. The same colonial forces destroyed that unity. Political unrest in the early 1960s forced the issue of political/ethnic unity once again on the political agenda. And once again colonial authorities allied to imperialism subverted the possibility of unity. Mention has been made of the significance of the PPP/PNC 1985 talks at the invitation of the PNC. While it was unlikely that those talks would have produced any form of political unity, the PNC’s sudden turn to the right under Desmond Hoyte after the passing of Burnham destroyed any such possibility.
Great potential for building political unity on terms favourable to the PPP existed from 1992 and even though the PPP has been in office for the entire period since then, save for five years between 2015 and 2020, no serious efforts were made. It spent the period from 2003 searching for that elusive “trust” that will usher in the possibility of a political rapprochement. In a letter in yesterday’s KW, Terrence Campbell indicated the steps that are necessary to be undertaken by the PPP to earn the trust of the PNCR. It is hardly likely that the PPP will engage except if it’s serious about the Vice-President’s ideas.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, having set out his views on the issue of political unity in the most important and positive political statement on the subject since his speech in 2003 on “Building Trust and Confidence,” observers would be looking out for something substantive. It is to be expected that the Vice President will invite the PNCR for preliminary discussions. Perhaps the issues mentioned by Terrence Campbell in his letter may form the basis of opening talks. If no movement is seen from the PPP after the Vice President’s remarks, the danger is that the public will see them as not serious, as merely political “gyaff.”
Apart from the brief engagement with the late Robert Corbin and an equally brief engagement with Desmond Hoyte in 2001, neither the PNCR nor the PPP has shown any desire to talk. It is not that the PPP has been pursuing the PNCR for the purpose of negotiating a political solution. Statements of the kind made by the Vice President were last heard from Cheddi Jagan prior to 1991. Thereafter, triumphalism took hold in the PPP. It even subverted the best opportunity that the PPP had so far of engineering a political solution. In 2011 the PPP was returned to office with a minority government. In any part of the world the first objective of such a circumstance is to seek a coalition partner to stabilize the government. This happens in much of Europe. But not Guyana. Not the PPP. It preferred the inevitable, the fall of the government in 2015, the loss of office at the elections of that year and the horror of attempted rigged elections five years later.
Terrence Campbell’s letter indicates that the PNCR has plans other than engagement with the PPP. Relying on the historical circumstance that the PNCR has only attained office in coalition with another party, as with the UF in 1964 and the AFC in 2015, it is casting an inviting glance in the direction of WIN. The PNCR conveniently forgets that it unceremoniously dumped both the UF and AFC after one term in office. That being said, no one knows, much less the PNCR, if WIN would be interested. WIN has done so well in its first electoral effort, and the PPP is so buffeted by allegations of corruption, high cost of living and mismanagement, that are not likely to end anytime soon, that WIN may fancy its chances of attaining an absolute majority at the next elections. Nevertheless, it may well be that for the PNCR, a unified list of the PNCR and WIN at the next elections offers the better possibility of removing the PPP from office. Both the PNCR and WIN are aggressive opponents of the PPP. They are not hostile to each other.
Many may interpret the Vice President’s remarks as being based on its fears of WIN, that WIN’s electoral potential poses an electoral danger to the PPP. Terrence Campbell said as much. Depending on the depth of fear, if any, concessions that may be required by the PPP to ensnare the PNCR are likely to be quite significant. But the PPP might have confidence in its own electoral strength and performance in government, and the Vice President may be only pointing to the future and reflecting nostalgic sentiments of a more unified, less contentious, era. But there is no doubt that the sentiments expressed by the Vice President emerge from the deep recesses of the origins, aspirations and hopeful expectation of Guyana’s 1950 political generation.
Discussion