APNU+AFC COALITION IS CONFIDENT OF A MAJORITY

The grand Coalition, comprising six parties – the Alliance For Change (AFC); Guyana Action Party (GAP); Justice For All Party (JFAP); National Front Alliance (NFA); People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) and the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) – is confident of winning a majority in the forthcoming General and Regional Elections. The Coalition looks forward to Election Day, Monday 11th May 2015, as a day when the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) will be removed from power.

The Guyanese people will have an opportunity to choose a new government in the elections. The choices facing us are clear. The choices will be between the APNU+AFC Coalition’s commitment to inaugurate a ‘government of national unity’ on the one hand or the People’s Progressive Party/Civic’s determination to continue its ‘winner-takes-all’ approach, on the other hand. The choices will be between electing APNU+AFC’s multi-party, inclusionary partnership or perpetuating the PPP/C’s one-party dictatorship.

The People’s Progressive Party is sliding towards a fall from power in the 2015 general and regional elections. It has been in decline for several years as its ‘core’ supporters deserted the Party in disgust. The PPP’s electoral performance has been declining over the past eighteen years. The PPP claimed 220, 667 votes in the controversial 1997 general and regional elections. Its tally fell to 210,013 in 2001. It then fell to 182,156 in 2006. It finally crashed to 166, 340 in 2011 when it lost its majority in the National Assembly to APNU and the AFC.

The decline started in August 1999 when Bharrat Jagdeo replaced Janet Jagan. Jagdeo, despite his boastful behaviour and swaggering style, was the author of the PPP’s problems, losing over 54, 000 votes from Janet Jagan’s assumed tally in 1997. His tenure ended in 2011 after the failure of ineffective manoeuvres to seek a new term of office.

The PPP during the Jagdeo era persistently failed to address the people’s basic needs for public services and embarked instead on a series of expensive but misconceived mega-projects such as the Fibre Optic Cable Project, the Specialty Surgical Hospital and the Amaila Falls Hydro-power Project road. Jagdeo’s successor, President Donald Ramotar, was obliged to cancel contract for all of these projects after the loss of billions of dollars.

The PPP tried to subordinate the National Assembly to the Executive branch of government. It impaired regulatory and law-enforcement agencies – such as the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit; the Environmental Protection Agency and the Guyana Energy Agency – by depriving them of adequate assets, equipment and finance to such an extent as to diminish their capability to function effectively.

The PPP cultivated the state-owned communications media – the Government Information Agency, Guyana National Newspapers Limited (publishers of the Guyana Chronicle) and the National Communications Network – as Party organs to systematically exclude dissenting opinions.

The PPP, now in its 23rd year in office, failed to address the country’s most pressing problem – the public security crisis. The Party never accepted its responsibility for the high rate of armed robberies, the murderous maritime piracy, the rampant gun-running and contraband smuggling and other violent crimes that rage along the coastland.

The entire nation is alarmed at the rising homicide rate. There have been more than 2,100 murders over the past 15 years during the two deadly Jagdeo and Ramotar presidencies. Guyana’s murder rate is three times higher than that of the United States.

The PPP failed to advance local democracy by destroying neighbourhood democratic councils and delaying local government elections. It failed to maintain educational standards which are now characterised by poor performance from the level of primary schools to the university.

Ramotar’s prorogation of parliament on 10th November 2014 enraged the nation and alarmed the international community. His ‘Proclamation’ effectively paralysed the parliamentary process and smothered the voices of the people’s legitimate representatives in the National Assembly – an affront to the Guyanese electorate who, in November 2011, voted for APNU and AFC to have the majority of seats in the National Assembly. He had earlier displayed gross disrespect for the National Assembly by refusing to assent to several bills which the Assembly had approved.

Ramotar’s brief presidency has been plagued by a wave of angry public protests. These occurred on the coastland – from paddy farmers, public servants, university lecturers, human rights activists and other groups. There were also protests in hinterland communities – from the Indigenous people living there and in Bartica, Mabaruma, Mahdia, Lethem and Port Kaituma. The result is that the PPP is now facing a ‘tsunami’ of troubles which grows more threatening by the day.

The PPP, clearly, has failed to transform Guyana into a united, modern, democratic state. It has failed to embrace the common good. It cannot escape the inevitable fall from power when general and regional elections are held on 11th May 2015.