During their almost 23 years in office, it was a perennial gripe of the PPP/C administration that they were being criticised for things that had passed without comment during the ‘dark days’ of the PNC, under both Mr Forbes Burnham and Mr Desmond Hoyte. It was as if, having been denied political power for so long, first by constitutional means when the PNC/United Force coalition was asked to form the government after the 1964 elections, and then by rigged elections until the watershed of 1992, they felt that this was sufficient moral justification for whatever mistakes, missteps and misfeasance took place on their watch, particularly under Messrs Bharrat Jagdeo and Donald Ramotar.
The crux of the problem, quite simply, is that the PPP/C failed to move with the times. In this respect, they failed to appreciate the evolutionary nature of our democracy, our fourth estate and our civil society, boosted by the emergence of a bona fide fifth estate, comprising political pundits, activists, bloggers and non-mainstream media taking full advantage of the possibilities afforded by the internet.
In the latter regard, notwithstanding the fact that our ICT infrastructure is relatively undeveloped and only about one-third of the population is connected to the internet, our population is becoming, slowly but surely, increasingly interconnected, with our young people, naturally, leading the way. And for our diaspora, of course, the internet has become indispensable to maintaining a sense of our far-flung Guyanese identity and keeping friends and family connected across the world and abreast of the latest news from home.
Thus, the May 11 elections – their lead-up, E-Day itself, and the unbearably long wait for the final result – were closely followed by Guyanese, seemingly in every corner of the globe, on the internet, monitoring the news media and new, provocative players like GT Mosquito, official political party sites and, of course, Facebook. Indeed, one got the strong impression that Facebook was the default site for seeking and sharing news on any and everything to do with the elections, with numerous posts of fact and fiction and powerful images from the election campaign, via uploads of photographs and videos. In some cases, notwithstanding the potential for rumour-mongering, mischievous allegations were quickly rubbished and exposed on Facebook, with the Kwame McCoy non-incident one of the most notorious examples. If anything, these elections could be called the ‘Facebook elections’. Now, in the immediate aftermath of the elections, there is every sign that the scrutiny will continue, both on social media and in mainstream media.
That the PPP/C were held to a higher standard than the PNC was actually a credit to the promise heralded by the election of Dr Cheddi Jagan in 1992 and the huge expectations that accompanied ‘the return to democracy.’ It was not a case of double standards, as many in the PPP/C have whinged over the years.
That Dr Jagan died before he could fulfil his mandate and deliver the change he had promised was a tragedy, although it is a moot point whether he would have delivered on that promise. That his successors, especially Messrs Jagdeo and Ramotar, succumbed to the hubris of power and the misguided belief that a five-yearly ethnic census would sustain the PPP/C in office was perhaps more of a tragicomedy in that it betrayed the utterly vacuous and ludicrous nature of their ‘vision’ for Guyana.
Whilst the PPP/C has resurrected its mournful refrain of having been “cheated but not defeated,” however, whether it matters to them or not, there are already signs that much is expected of the new APNU+AFC coalition government and that the people will hold them to account.
This may, of course, be of little comfort to the PPP/C but, as we suggested in our editorial last Sunday, the honeymoon period will be brief. Already, there are murmurings and the message is clear. The new government would do well to take note and meet the merest hint of criticism with well thought-out action and communication, not complaint. And, as the PPP/C was continually reminded, it is of little consequence what the previous government did, for two wrongs, or multiple wrongs for that matter, can never make a right, if the promise of transformational leadership, inclusionary democracy, equitable development and change for all Guyanese is to be fulfilled.