The Myth of the PPP-C’s invincibility

By Dominic Gaskin

Perhaps because of our strong ethnic voting patterns, the role of swing voters in Guyana does not feature much in the national discussion when it comes to politics and our elections. With the national demographics favouring one political party, our election results have been fairly predictable over the last two decades, to the point of discouraging any detailed analysis of electoral data. The fact that swing voters are more likely to be found outside of the ethnic support bases that sustain the two major parties has probably not helped to highlight their significance.

However, with a third party now a permanent feature on the political scene, swing voters could become the determining factor in who governs Guyana, going forward.

Swing voters are those electors who are not permanently stuck on any particular political party, and are therefore prepared to cast their votes in favour of the party that appeals to them the most (or disgusts them the least) whenever an election comes around. It is fairly easy to assess the impact of swing voters in recurring two-party elections. However, a three-party race adds a layer of complexity to the matter, presenting quite a challenge to the political analyst looking for a plausible perspective.

The existence of swing voters in Guyana is perhaps best demonstrated by a look at the results of the last three elections in Regions 4 and 10.

In the 2006 elections the amount of valid votes counted in Region 4 dropped by approximately 26,000 relative to the amount counted in 2001. In that election the PPP-C and the PNC experienced drops in actual votes of approximately 11,000 and 25,000 respectively compared to their 2001 results. The fact that the PPP-C’s percentage of the vote remained virtually unchanged while the PNC’s declined by nearly 8 percentage points, makes it logical to conclude that a significant amount of the 13,876 (9.5%) votes won in the region by the newly formed Alliance For Change came from voters who had voted for the PNC in 2001. While this indicates that voters were willing to break away from a party which they had previously supported at the polls, the results of the 2011 elections show that many within this group were just as willing to revert.

In that election, while the AFC and the PPP-C experienced declines of over 3,000 and 1,500 votes respectively, APNU recorded an increase of nearly 17,000 votes over the PNC’s 2006 vote count. The logical conclusion is that most of the votes lost by the AFC went to APNU and this would mean that in three elections some voters have moved from the PNC to the AFC and then back to the PNC (APNU). These are true swing voters whose votes cannot be taken for granted by any political party. The results in Region 10 are similar to those in Region 4, albeit on a smaller scale. There, however, the fluctuations in percentages of votes cast for the three parties are much more pronounced.

Were one to breakdown the results for the entire country, polling station by polling station, and compare them over the last three elections, the totality of those fluctuations would prove to be much greater than the net voter migrations reflected in the regional or national results. Allowances can be made for new voters and departed voters in order to estimate the size of our swing voter population. There’s got to be an app for that.

Some of our leading political pundits have dismissed the Alliance For Change as a fly-by-night party, incapable of winning an election in Guyana. In fact many of them had predicted that the AFC would have dwindled away after the 2006 elections. In doing so they have misread both the Guyanese public and the Alliance For Change itself, and are completely ignoring the numbers.

The tabling of the No-Confidence Motion in the National Assembly was not a publicity stunt. It was a move to address a serious national crisis, in which the Executive had grossly exceeded its authority over the public purse, and was continuing to spend monies in blatant defiance of the constitutional safeguards and the people’s representatives. The widespread public support for the No-Confidence Motion does not gel with the notion that the PPP-C Government can retain its plurality indefinitely, regardless of how lawless, corrupt, incompetent and abusive it has become. Yet some would have us believe precisely that.

In terms of actual numbers of voters, both the PPP-C and the PNC “maxed-out” their natural support base some time back, and their votes have declined by 43,000 and 25,000 respectively from 2001 to 2011. While this does not mean that these two parties cannot increase their electoral support, any increase would have to come from first-time voters or swing voters. The PPP-C lost major ground to the AFC in both Regions 5 and 6 at the last election and has done little, if anything at all, to alleviate the growing discontent in those Regions. It is unlikely to regain what it lost and there’s no good reason why it should receive more first-time voters than the other two parties at the next election.

The AFC, on the other hand, is still enjoying the advantage of its newness and is growing its support base nationwide. The party will enter its next election campaign in a much stronger position than it did in 2011 and will be targeting a plurality this time around. The fact that a third party election victory would be unprecedented in Guyana, and in fact is unusual anywhere in the world, is no excuse for political analysts to avoid a proper numerical analysis of past election results and to ignore evidence that a growing section of our electorate today has no allegiance to any particular party.

While there is no evidence pointing to an AFC victory in the next election, there has been a progressive decline in the actual number of persons voting for the PPP-C. In 2006, the party’s votes decreased in nine of Guyana’s ten regions. In 2011, this decrease continued in the same nine regions. The overall votes cast in favour of the PPP-C were 209,031, 183,887 and 166,340 in 2001, 2006 and 2011 respectively. Do any of our respected political gurus seriously believe that this slide would suddenly reverse itself in the next election? And if so, why?

The swing voters of Guyana will not view kindly the abusiveness that has characterized the PPP-C Government since they last voted. The new young voters on the list are not likely to confuse their situation with any rosy depictions presented by campaign slicksters. This is the reality that confronts the Government and this is why a motion of no-confidence is the last thing they need right now.

The myth of the PPP-C’s invincibility does not withstand even the most basic analysis of the available data. To suggest that a government with the track record of the PPP-C can look forward to being returned indefinitely insults the state of mind of our electorate. The PPP-C Government, by its own actions, has antagonized and alienated a very large section of our population, and is now ducking and hiding from a simple one-line motion that awaits the next sitting of the National Assembly.

The AFC was formed to bring about political change in Guyana and will pursue this objective in the firm belief that Guyana will only become a better place when its people begin to hold their governments accountable.