ADVERSARIAL POLITICS AND A COMMON OPPOSITION STRATEGY
October 25, 2014, By KNews, Filed Under Features/Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source = Kaieteur News
There is no basic rule of joint opposition politics to wit, that if there is a common adversary then there has to be a common strategy to confront that adversary. There has never been such a rule; politics have never been that inflexible and dogmatic.
In Guyana during the struggles to end the PNC dictatorship there were numerous occasions during which the political opposition parties came together. They came together in political formations such as the Committee in Defence of Democracy, the Arnold Rampersaud trial and the Patriotic Coalition for Democracy (PCD).
The latter is instructive of the fact that there can be joint opposition politics even when the political parties have major differences over tactics and strategies. Within the PCD there were many different parties including parties such as the Democratic Labour Movement which was ideologically opposed to both the Working People’s Alliance and the People’s Progressive Party. Indeed, the PPP also had grave reservations about the DLM, labeling it as a CIA front organization.
The PPP was viciously opposed to the DLM but that did not stop them from coming together under the umbrella of the PCD.
Throughout the life of the PCD there were major differences amongst the constituent parties. The most terminal were the differences on a common slate and a common platform for the 1992 elections. The historical record will show that it was the WPA in cahoots with GUARD which eventually jettisoned comprises reached on the common slate.
Despite these differences, the PCD was able to achieve a great deal. For example had it not been for the PCD it is doubtful that the electoral reforms which eventually culminated in the agreement for counting the votes at the place of poll would have materialized. The point is that you can still find common ground where there is major disagreement.
The argument, therefore, that there is a need for APNU and the AFC to have a common strategy to confront the PPP is a flawed argument. Indeed, the AFC as a third force and a party offering itself as an alternative to both the PPP and the PNC has to be very careful about the permanence of alliances that it cements with APNU.
AFC offers itself up as holding the balance of power in the National Assembly. And therefore while it can cooperate with APNU, and it has done so on a number of occasions, it has to be in a position whereby any tactical alliances it forges do not erode its freedom to differ with APNU, as it has done on occasion in the National Assembly.
To therefore commit to a common strategy against a common adversary would be tantamount to the AFC undermining its freedom to decide on what issues it will oppose either the PPP or APNU or both.
The conclusion therefore that the no-confidence motion will fail because the two parties do not have a common strategy is based on a fallacious premise that there has to be a common strategy amongst the joint opposition parties. There has to be common agreements on issues but not necessarily a common strategy to confront the PPP.
The AFC is not interested in local government elections. It wants to cut short the term of Donald Ramotar for reasons that it knows best. It wants to deny him a full term. APNU on the other hand may have reservations about the outcome of fresh general and regional elections and may be thinking that local government elections would be a suitable referendum on the support that the opposition parties now enjoy. There may thus be differences as to how each of the opposition parties approaches the no-confidence motion.
But the bottom line is this: APNU has publicly indicated that it will support the motion whenever it is tabled. Therefore there is consensus on this issue even though tactically the two opposition parties may be approaching the issue differently, which all go to debunk the notion that a common strategy is needed to confront a common adversary.
But that argument about the need for a common strategy to confront a common adversary exposes a certain mindset. That mindset is that when it comes to the PPP, the opposition parties must be adversarial. By labeling the PPP as an adversary, one effectively closes the door to any form of political cooperation.
Those who wish to pursue this confrontational path of politics are effectively sidelining the possibility of power sharing. If power sharing is to be achieved requires some form of political cooperation between government and opposition.
The promotion of adversarial politics also misreads the public mood. Right now there are talks going on between APNU and the PPP over governance. At the centre of those talks is the issue of local government elections. But what the people really want is for some agreement, any agreement to come out of those talks so as to put an end to adversarial politics which the prophet of shared governance now deems as demanding a common strategy by the joint opposition parties.
Source = http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....opposition-strategy/
