…parties
Jagdeo’s success with his no-confidence gambit succeeded in throwing out the PNC-led coalition Government – that we know. Don’t worry about all that flailing around with claims of “half people” to demand that 33 isn’t greater than 32!!
And then, of course, the PNC did claim once that they received the votes of 97 per cent of the electorate when international observers confirmed that only 15 per cent showed up at the polls. It’s called PNC “voodoo” Mathematics!!
But the vote has forced lots of armchair politicians, who were pontificating to the populace via their keypads, to put up or shut up. If they want to remain relevant, they’ll have to put their bodies where their mouth is and jump into the hustings NOW – since elections are due latest end March 2019. Just like you can’t learn to swim unless you enter the water, political pontificators are useless unless they’re tested in mobilising votes.
That’s a lesson Guyanese must imbibe – talk’s cheap, but it’s the voice of the people that counts. Democracy demands those who want to represent the people to go to the aforesaid people to find out if they are the latter’s mandate. For two hundred years we were convinced by “Liberals” that their high falutin’ ideas couched in fancy language entitled them to rule people, who they saw as “the great unwashed”.
Well…as Bob Dylan prophesied a while back, the times are a changin’ and in England, the US, Europe and other exemplars of democracy, the “people” decided they don’t need leaders who talk down to them. The leaders must be in the trenches with them and talking their language and about their fears.
Well the no-confidence vote has flushed out one Liberal set of gentlemen – and they are all GENTLE men – with impeccable Liberal-left credentials – who’ve launched a party which they’ve been mulling over forever. Their submission to solve Guyana’s problems is “constitutional change” to engender power-sharing arrangement that involves a President and Prime Minister from different parties – like in France.
The fly in the soup, however – which these fellas have pushed aside while continuing to drink the soup – is it’ll take the support of both the PPP and PNC to change the pertinent articles of the Constitution.
But there’s also a cockroach in the soup – their presumption that the people want the two parties to share power.
In the estimation of your Eyewitness this is a pipe dream as big as the one some had in Britain about the “rationality” of remaining in the EU. Or that America should have the world keep sending their “poor and huddled masses”!!
Folks want THEIR party to win! We’ve got to deal with that.
…Leaders
The accelerated election schedule also put pressure on the established political parties to name their Presidential and Prime Ministerial Candidates. Lucky for the PPP, the CCJ’s “sovereignty of the people” decision placed their “presidential sweepstakes” on their front burner for a year.
The front runners have emerged since then. With the procedure for their choice well established: The Executive Committee (ExCo) of 15 will first recommend candidates for the positions and will pass on these to the Central Committee of 35, the final choice should be very smooth.
Over in the PNC-led coalition, things aren’t so sanguine. Some realists don’t believe the incumbent PNC and APNU leader David Granger will be running because of his illness.
One WPA Executive has already asserted they must have a say in choosing their new APNU leader. Seems he doesn’t accept this has to be the PNC leader – and since that’s the PNC Congress’ call, one doesn’t see how this demand will be met!!
Both WPA and AFC will have to take it or leave it!
…treatment
It was very poignant that President Granger had to fly off to Cuba on Christmas Day to continue his chemo treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The country wishes him a quick return!
