Analyzing the 2015 General Elections results
Serious episodes of impossibilities characterized the results of the 2015 National Elections. All three parties – APNU, AFC and PPP – will have to call in their analysts to help prepare political strategies for 2020.
First, the Amerindians devastated coalition hopes. In all the Regions where there were Amerindians, the indigenous people embraced the PPP. In what can be called a caricatured victory, the coalition won Region Eight by one vote. In 2011, the PPP was beaten badly there. In 2015, the coalition increased its take by a hundred votes; the PPP by one thousand.
Secondly, Berbice will prove to be the PPP’s biggest problem in 2020. There is talk throughout political society in Guyana that Berbicians as they did in 2011, stayed home in 2015. There was a turnout just above the fifty percent mark. But there is a big but. Were those absentees living in Guyana in May 2015? Is it possible that the absentees are among the two dozen East Indians who leave Guyana daily for Canada, US and Trinidad?
The cruel reality that has ruined the permanent electoral happiness of the PPP, is that East Indians do not want to stay in Guyana. From the time they leave high school the mind is set to go to North America. Any journalist who has connections to US Embassy and Canadian High Commission officials would tell you the majority of migrants are Indians.
If they were leaving in large numbers since Cheddi Jagan became President in 1992, then imagine what will happen now that a non-PPP government is in power. What the PPP is facing is one of the cruelest ironies in history and in politics. An Indian demographic majority made the PPP win elections all the time. Now an Indian demographic minority will cause the PPP to lose elections forever.
Thirdly, the coalition’s expected high percentage did not happen. The Indians did not swing toward the AFC in large numbers pumping up the percentage from 2011. Fourthly, the PPP’s prediction of a large scale return of Indians to the PPP did not happen.
The AFC made a coalition victory possible because it gave APNU the votes that APNU needed to take the coalition over the fifty percent mark. More Indians from Regions Three and Four balloted for the AFC this time. The AFC lost three hundred votes in Berbice in 2015 compared to 2011, but that was made up for by Indian ballots in Region Three of young Indians nationwide and middle class Indians in Region 4.
Fifthly, African Guyanese gushed to the polls on May 11 like a river that burst its banks. Even if there was a tsunami in Guyana, it could not have stopped Afro-Guyanese from voting. They registered in humongous numbers and voted in humongous numbers. They felt it was do or die for them as an ethnic community.
African Guyanese decided that they were not going to live a minute longer with the PPP Government. When the coalition was born, it was a big Christmas gift of a diamond nugget for them.
Sixthly, the gap between the AFC and APNU as opposition parties and the PPP in 2011 was 8000. In 2015 it was cut in half. Seventhly, there was still no huge national turn out for the 2015 national elections. It stood at 72 percent, identical with 2011. Finally, the vote difference between the coalition and the PPP could have been a thousand votes less if TUF did not contest. I believe TUF collected a thousand votes that would have gone to the PPP.
Now for a brief analysis of these statistics. The use of a deadly racist campaign and the colossal use of state resources took Indian votes away from the AFC and Amerindian votes from the coalition. You can try as hard as you can to use acceptable language, the point is, that our Amerindian folks are not urban people that apply analysis to political trends as Guyanese do in Regions Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven and Ten. They live simple lives deep in the interior and relate mostly to governmental officials who patronize them. With the PPP out of power, the PPP will lose Amerindian votes in 2020.
Many Indians became genuinely scared after Jagdeo sermonized them with a phantasmagoria of violent attacks from a resurgent PNC and African people.
The religious Hindu priest, Aksharananda chipped in too with his own scare tactics in Region Three where he is popular among Hindu folks. If the PPP bandwagon was clean and the PPP had campaigned on its achievements, Indians would have rejected them giving the AFC large number of ballots.
Nasty racist poison by the PPP prevented a coalition landslide.
Comments
Reblogged this on rennydiokno.com.
Freddie was a few days ago, dismissing the PPP as a spent force. Now he is changing his tune. Apan jaat is not over as he has been forced to come to terms with. Futhermore he considers the Indigenous vote a mere consequence of government patronage. In the heyday of the United Force Amerindians..supported it despite government patronage. Granted, many were influenced by the Catholic Church but one would have expected the Amerindian Peoples Association to have greater influence in supporting an APNU-GAP figure like Syndney Allicock. A more mature approach than simply talking about patronage is necessary, Freddie. .http://www.stabroeknews.com/2011/opinion/letters/10/09/political-parties-should-approach-the-amerindians-in-a-mature-way/.
Any politician who ignores the fact that the Amerindians were the first inhabitants of Guyana do so at their peril.
Amerindians not unlike American/Canadian Indians or Australian/new Zealand
aborigines were Nomads and are like any other species of the wild that needs
laws for the conservation of their lands…..not herded like sheep into the urban way of life…..equal rights as citizens of Guyana must prevail.
Am sure the next generations of amerindians have an important if not crucial
part to play in the development of Guyana in the future.
To live the life of an endangered species is not what future generations
should accept.
Guyana governments must support their calls for equality.
As for the statistical arguments above…..POST MORTEM.
VIVA GUYANA VIVE GUYANESE wherever you are.
Guyana is our first love it should be our last.😇
Que sera
The sad reality of Guyana is that we are deeply divided along racial lines, but the good news is that we are in a new era. No longer do we have to continue headlong into this mindless pit of destruction call racism. Let’s begin to apologize to each other and on behalf of each other for the hate and prejudice and wicked stereotyping. Let us resolve to work together to build this great nation. The nasty politics and electioneering every five years has done us no good. Isnt there a better way? Dont we have enough intellegent persons locally and abroad to come up with a formula where all feel like winners. This utter nonsense of “we win” and “they lose” must stop. We dont have to wait for 2020. Lets begin a national conversation now, let’s begin to talk to each other. God bless Guyana.
There is a saying
It is better to be a good loser than bad winner.
A handshake after losing or winning is gentlemanly conduct.
Live to fight another day 😇