When I arrived, I saw just ten persons

When I arrived at the market tarmac at Lusignan on Monday afternoon, there were about ten persons. My role was to introduce Sandra Granger, the wife of David Granger at the public meeting of APNU-AFC. It didn’t look good but I wasn’t surprised.
I explained to Raymond Hall of the AFC, and Bevon Curry of APNU, that there are strongholds of the PPP that may be more enduring than Berbice, Lusignan and Annandale are two of them. Whereas Berbice has suffered from PPP’s incompetence over the sugar industry, some PPP enclaves in Region Four remain firmly in the PPP’s grip because of certain circumstances.
In the case of Annandale, the PPP has ensured continued support through the racial demonization of Annandale’s neighbour, Buxton. PPP leaders go to Annandale and engender fear in citizens by invoking stories of violent Buxtonians. It is the same with Lusignan. Every year the PPP and its political sidekick, the Indian Arrival Committee, observe the massacre that took place there. The PPP fan the flames of hatred against the PNC at that annual ritual.
Guyana is in the midst of an Indian renaissance. Last week Moses Nagamootoo drew a mammoth crowd in Annandale. On Monday I saw the transformation for myself on the Lusignan market tarmac. I drove onto the tarmac and went over to speak to Raymond Hall. If you minus the APNU-AFC officials, the attendees were about ten.
By the time it was my turn to go on stage and introduce Sandra Granger; ten heads had become a mini-rally. Within two hours the crowds and vehicles had taken over the tarmac. This was in Lusignan, an Indian village where the PPP feel invincible. Is it possible that in 2015 we are seeing the liberation of the East Indian mind?
Surely, those people could not have come just to listen then go home and return to their PPP embrace. My take is that, those people came out there to support the alternative to the PPP that is being offered to them. I believe those people came out to see Moses Nagamootoo. I am an academic and therefore I have to do analysis and my analysis of what I saw in Lusignan on Monday, tells me that PPP support has dwindled in the parts of Guyana where Indians predominate and such constant diminution has cost the PPP the election.
In newspapers around the world where there are general elections, commentators predict the results and they offer their analyses. Right now if you pick up the Guardians, you will see the columnists giving their take on the outcome of the British elections to be held just days before our own. Most commentators are saying there will not be a majority government.
In Guyana, there are no third parties (I mean this; this writer is totally dismissive of the small parties in our election). There is a straight fight between two Leviathans. After what I have seen at the public meetings in predominantly Indian areas like Annandale, Black Bush Polder, Goed Bananen Land, Tuschen, Zeelugt, Industry, I would posit that the coalition is going to win a majority on May 12.
During an election, analysts have two sources on which to base their predictions. One is polls. We do not have polls being done here. There isn’t money to get UWI academics to do an election survey. But even so, we know polls can be seriously misleading, the reason being that just days before an election, things can happen to make people change their minds.
The latest example of that was the Scotland referendum. All the surveys had a close voting. It turned out that the Independence loss the election badly.
The other source is the kind of support people give the parties during the campaign. In each stronghold of the PPP, its rallies have been huge. In each stronghold of APNU, the rallies have been huge too. But the AFC’s presence in Indian areas has to be taken into the equation. AFC personnel, particularly Moses Nagamootoo are making inroads. The comparison is Bartica with Lusignan, Berbice with Georgetown.
The PPP did poorly in Bartica but the coalition brought out seven thousand in Bartica and Bartica has six thousand voters. That is phenomenal. The PPP did superbly at Albion but the coalition did well in Whim.
In Georgetown, the women rally of the coalition was overwhelming but the PPP showing in Georgetown is abysmal.
The point is, if you go by numbers at rallies and public meetings, the coalition is attracting multi-racial support, the PPP is not. Based on that configuration, my prediction is a coalition victory.