Peeping Tom: The opposition may appear to be keen on passing the four outstanding local government Bills. But are they really keen on the holding of local government elections?
The last time local government elections were held the ruling People’s Progressive Party swept the polls, accumulating 60 percent of the total votes cast. This was something that the PNC had predicted. So afraid was the PNCR of a second successive humiliating at the hands of the PPP/C following their mauling in the 1992 general and regional elections that they decided that they wanted their candidates to appear as if they were part of community and civil society groupings, a strategy that did not work at all.

The PNC did badly in the 1994 local government polls. They even lost to the Good and Green Guyana in the municipal election in Georgetown, long considered the bastion of PNC support in the country.
APNU should therefore not get too excited about its prospects at any forthcoming elections. The PPP/C is going to humiliate the opposition at the polls and is likely to do much better than it did in the 2011 elections where it just barely failed to win a parliamentary majority after a disastrous performance in Region 6.
However, it was not APNU that denied the PPP/C a majority. It was AFC vote-splitting in Region 6 that delivered a minority to the PPP/C in the National Assembly, even though the PPP/C gained almost nine per cent more votes than its nearest rival, APNU.
APNU’s performance was below what the PNCR tallied in the 1992 and 1997 elections, and therefore it must not believe that it stands to do better in forthcoming local government elections than it did in the 1994 polls.
In fact, serious questions are now being asked as to if the PNCR, the main alliance partner in APNU, is the same party it was in 2001 when its electoral share declined appreciably to 35 %. There are also serious questions as to whether indeed the PNCR has reinvented itself as APNU, as it tried to do with the community groups in the 1994 local government polls, or whether the party has been overrun by veterans.
Does the party of Forbes Burnham and Desmond Hoyte still exist or is it now a veterans’ institution? Is this the same old PNCR or has it been taken over by forces which were not part of the traditional PNCR?
These are the questions that are being asked in some quarters and more so following the secrecy that characterized the results of the elections of the last Congress, where the results took an inordinately long time to be made public, and following the failure to hold a post-Congress rally as is usually the norm.
APNU may still, however, do well in the traditional constituencies of the PNC and PNCR. The AFC in turn is not likely to do well at all in local government elections. The middle class from which the AFC draws much of its urban support is not generally interested in local government elections and thus the AFC is likely to face a staggering defeat in local government polls.
The PPP/C has in turn lost some ground within its rural base but it should still be able to better its 1994 local government elections’ performance when it defeated and humbled the PNC.
The Americans are keen on the country having local government elections. They see these elections as important from two angles. First, for them it will be a referendum on the PPP/C’s performance since the last elections, and may signal whether Guyana may be in for an extended period of minority rule. This would be problematic from American security interests since they need a certain degree of stability and predictability when dealing with local administrations.
They want democracy to work in Guyana because this is in their own interest as well as to ensure that democracy take firmer root in a former socialist country. As such, they are on the populace a regular experience of democratic participation and in so doing make elections results less volatile.
What happens though if local government polls reveal what many know already? That the opposition parties cannot win an election in the very near future in Guyana?
The only party with any chance of defeating the PPP/C is APNU but that party cannot close the nine percentage points gap that separates it from the PPP/C. In fact, it is more than likely that the PPP will come back stronger than ever whenever elections are held. The PPP/C is likely to win back it majority.
The AFC’s best chance is to hold the balance of power but it has shown its hand over the past two years and even its own supporters will be disgusted at its vindictive, vengeful and inflexible approach to national politics.
All of these approaches play right into the hands of the PPP/C. The PPP/C has nothing to lose by the acrimonious political climate that exists at the moment. This is what the PPP/C needs more than anything else to go back to its supporters and say, “We told you do!”
It is for the opposition parties to demonstrate that shared governance will work. They have not been doing a good job at it and this can only mean a return to majority rule.