…the LGE storm
Now that the LGE results are out, there’s a lotta folks out there getting “belly-wuk”– all from the AFC and PNC camps. The PPP’s grinning from ear to ear!! The AFC, of course, were left to hang out to dry by the PNC – some would say, “thrown under the bus” – and now that they’ve been exposed as the “dead meat” they were since 2015, their gastrointestinal travails gotta be excruciating!!
One of their members wrote to the Chronic claiming the “AFC still holds the balance” between the PNC and PPP!! Really? But the AFC leadership would know that, when using a balance, there’s a rounding off necessity that makes weights below a certain amount, irrelevant. In the numbers that the LGE threw up, the votes accumulated by the AFC guarantees their irrelevance! They’re wiped out by the “rounding off” necessity!!
While PNC chair Volda Lawrence stepped up to the podium to field questions about the performance of her party, the AFC sent out a lowly Executive member. Leader Trotman, Chairman Ramjattan and “Elder” Nagamootoo were nowhere to be seen. Belly wuk too bad!! The hapless AFC flunkey had to put on a brave face and claimed “voter apathy” was the reason they did so miserably!! So how come the PPP voters weren’t “apathetic”??
The fella also volunteered that his party’s abysmal performance at the LGE won’t have any effect on its coalition with APNU for the 2020 elections!! Clearly, he must’ve thought marijuana was already legalised and had smoked a spliff!! Why’d he think Granger untied them from his apron strings? Right after the 2015 elections, there was a wave of PNC dissention about the AFC getting 40 per cent of the Cabinet – even if diluted! – when they didn’t deliver the promised votes. With them now exposed in all their nakedness, they’ll be lucky if the PNC makes them dogcatcher!!
And that brings us to the PNC. Lawrence can talk all she wants about “not seeing the result as a loss”, but for just 28 per cent of the City voters to show up and exercise their franchise, it means they’re pi55ed off at the PNC.
This was plain and simple passive aggression from the PNC’s traditional supporters: they mightn’t have voted for the PPP but – by golly! – they weren’t going to leave their homes for a Government that’s left them in the lurch since 2015!
The PNC can also see the WPA has no pull in Buxton any longer: even they couldn’t get them out in enough numbers to match the PPP numbers from the other villages in the Buxton-Foulis NDC.
So, the headline crowed, “PPP won Buxton!!” Imagine that!
Big Belly wuk!!
…the PPP victories
LGEs in most places are about local issues like fixing streets and collecting garbage and such like. But not in Guyana! No matter how you cut it; slice it or dice it, none of the parties can deny that the LGE was seen by them as a dress rehearsal for 2020. If the US has its “midterms” which reminds the incumbent President as to how the political winds are blowing, with the return of LGE in 2016, this will now serve that purpose henceforth!
And with that in mind, the PPP sure came up smelling roses!! In every section of the country they did better – which made their overall PR numbers over the PNC/APNU from 2016 swell from 25,000 to over 45,000! As mentioned before, the PPP under their General Secretary Jagdeo was able to rally his troops and get their votes out! But if the truth be told, the PNC has been their own worst enemy since 2016 and has insisted on shooting itself in the foot at the drop of a hat.
By 2020 they might be just out of feet!!
…and worrying about the President
The collapse in turnout by traditional PNC supporters have exacerbated concerns about the health of President Granger.
Political uncertainly increases political risks for multinationals. Not good for Guyana!
