The PPP has learnt nothing from its electoral setbacks of the past four years. Those setbacks should have led to a radical reassessment of the party’s strategies and postures.
It is behaving in the same way that allowed it to first lose its electoral majority and then eventually to lose power in the elections of this year.
Since the formation of the AFC, the PPP’s tactics have been to alienate this party which it sees as encroaching on its support base. In 2006 it was joined by the PNCR in a deal which saw collaboration to exclude the AFC in the appointment of Regional Chairpersons and Vice Chairpersons.
The tactics of both parties then were obvious. The AFC represented a threat to their support bases and therefore needed to be targeted. The PPP has continued with this tactic even after the 2011 election.
The PPP went into the 2011 elections arguing that a vote for the AFC was a vote for the PNCR. The populace did not buy that argument and the AFC did remarkably well enough to hand the combined opposition enough seats to deny the PPP a majority in the National Assembly.
Instead of recognizing the rejection of its arguments, the PPP continued its attacks on the AFC. Instead of trying to mend fences with the AFC, the PPP instead opted to have negotiations only with the PNCR on budget and other issues. It was attempting to play the PNCR off against the AFC.
Attempts by the AFC to try to negotiate with the PPP government were rebuffed at every stage and therefore the AFC had no choice but to adopt a confrontation stance against the PPP and to join up with the PNCR in the National Assembly to cripple the rule of the PPP. This was successfully done to the point whereby the PPP was forced to prorogue parliament to avoid the humiliation of a no-confidence vote.
The PPP still did nothing to try to negotiate with the AFC. Instead it pushed the AFC into a coalition with the PNCR. When this happened the PPP took to the same non-conciliatory line. It attacked the AFC. The PPP was hoping that when the AFC joined with the PNCR their supporters would have returned to the PPP and PNCR. But this did not happen. The AFC held its support and the coalition by the skin of its teeth won the 2015 elections. It was the closet election ever in the history of Guyana and probably the closet one ever.
The PPP has still not learnt from its electoral demise. It continues to target the AFC. Just this past weekend, it mobilized its supporters in Whim against the Prime Minister of Guyana, Moses Nagamootoo accusing the AFC of betraying the people of Berbice.
That is a failed strategy. It has not worked in nine years and it will not work. The PPP should try something new. It should work at the grassroots to woo back the supporters it lost to the AFC. But it cannot do this by attacking the AFC. When you attack the leaders of a party that people support, the supporters of that party go to the defense of their party. A smarter strategy should be used, one that attempts to reach out to the AFC leadership rather than undermining it.
The AFC support is not about its leadership. The AFC does not represent a constituency that no longer wishes to be seen as being either PPP or PNCR but this does not mean that this constituency does not realize the importance of the AFC aligning with either grouping to achieve political objectives.
The PPP however is in a self-destructive mode. It does not understand such tactics and therefore it will robotically continue in the same vein.
By the way, the government has appointed the AFC’s Moses Nagmootoo as its point person to negotiate with the PPP; the PPP has been given another opportunity to repair its breach with the AFC.
The PPP will not make use of that opportunity. It has no interest in building better relations with the AFC. It has no interest in building better relations with civil society. It has no interest in reaching out to the supporters of the PNC.
It only knows one type of politics and this is why it will remain in the opposition for a long, long time.