If there’s any consolation in the numbers by which the PPP won the 2018 Local Government Elections, it’s that they have awakened the Coalition Palace Guard who are now alerting its slumbering occupants to the avalanche of discontent amongst Coalition supporters.
The Coalition ascended to office on the strength of a subset of voters who were looking for a different flavor of leadership, one that was more inclusionary, less tribal, more progressive, less partisan.
There are those who like to minimize this victory by citing its narrow margin but what should never be lost is the fact that the variance was comprised of voters who crossed platforms and those who were generally apathetic; all of whom felt that that moment in 2015 was the one time they had to change the arc of socio economic depression that was a national malady.
So, the opportunity to vote in May 2015 was a catharsis for many, as much as it was a repudiation of the PPP and Jagdeo, its speckled leader, who had submerged the nation into every form of woe.
Forty months post Coalition General Election victory, the results of the 2018 Local Government Elections cap a Government marked by missed opportunities, false starts and squandered momentum; outdone by an Opposition Misinformation Apparatus largely because it remains neutered by this contraption and mostly because it self- centeredly evaluates its own performance and assigns itself an A…
…which may explain why a government of this experiential stature would be politically naive enough not to understand that the absence of real Political Communications and Public Relations is tactically improficient.
So, Jagdeo looks like a fanged foe and the post LGE numbers give many opportunity to say I told you so.
But preferring practical wisdom to verbal felicity, I’m a lil more conservative with my predictions, especially when I can calculate rather than prognosticate.
There is palpable cognitive dissonance amongst Coalition supporters when it comes to speaking candidly about the Coalition’s errors and what they, as supporters, want to see done, in the interest of their representation.
They whisper about Coalition inefficiencies amongst themselves, then organize galas in their honor when they come a-begging.
We have no affiliation, hence no motivation to call failure by any other name. So we’ll underscore what we see as their debilitating, multiple -part, problem.
The Coalition has misspent the support it had from those who voted for them and squandered popularity and momentum, while on that spending spree.
Condemnatory.
Its Political Communications/ Public Relations operation speaks at levels of inaudibility.
Calamitous.
The Opposition Communications Apparatus is a raucous one and commands the listening space by default because theirs is the only voice there.
Maddening.
And here’s why.
The PPP is characterized by a forced fidelity to a mercurial leader, Jagdeo, whose perceived charisma sits on either side of the sentiment meter – adulation or fear. The composition of the PPP is largely East Indian and from both Hindu and Muslim enclaves…mentioned that to underscore that, in this arrangement of politics, race rises above religion. With this monochromatic uniformity, the ideology spans the panoply of democratic authoritarians, which is essentially disregard for the rule of law by creating the authoritarian’s law which Jagdeo did hundreds of times with his Amendments to the Constitution over the 12 years of his autocracy, eventually sinking Guyana to the depths of socio political levels…all verifiable by reviewing the reports of International Organizations: for extrajudicial killings, arbitrarily jailed those who spoke against him for contrived sedition, controlled the media, was involved in forced to remedy Money Laundering Status he encouraged under is rule, made massive land giveaway to members of his Party… by way of introduction.
Given the characteristics and the composition of this entity’s following, it’s academic that theirs is a unidimensional message that espouses an ideology manufactured purely for its base.
Veracity and facts are interchanged with mendacity and conjecture and what better meal to feed a following that either worships or fears you?!!?…
….which is why the Communications /Public Relations paralysis of the Coalition is a conundrum that should not be whispered away in the name of fealty…and in the case of those who are not of partisan persuasion, frustration.
Apart from being politically naïve, it is tactically improficient not to have a Political Communications and Public Relations Team. We’re stating there is none judging from fundamental failures, here. And the Opposition’s apparatus is not to be considered a gauge for any form of engagement that the Coalition will mount…especially since it’s a cultist, propagandist, generator.
Forgive me if I share generics and generalities here but it will be way too detailed and intricate a strategy to delineate in an Op Ed.
What I will state is that this Coalition is doing exactly what makes the PPP an inviable option for those who prefer not to be members of a cult…posturing primarily for its base.
Now.
If there were a strategic Public Relations and Communications agency attached to the Coalition, the Local Government Elections that Jagdeo is citing with extended curtsey would have been addressed within 24 hours of his curtain call.
The hoisted trophy by the PPP boasts a 61% win at the polls.
What is critical is that this is 61% of a depressed national turn out of 36%.
What should be in sky writing is that this, in no way, gives Jagdeo a mandate.
It is inarguable that the General Elections Results of 2015 remain the yardstick by which to measure mandate.
If the Coalition would step away from its pigeon-chested bombast and realize that holding hands in a made-for-TV show of contrived unity does not play beyond its base, which is, demonstrably, not large enough to keep them in office and step away from the territorial tendency to do things amongst themselves, chances are they would recognize that doing the same thing that has resulted in cascading failure will not become success.
Guyana is in a new age of politics. Political tribalism has proven to be its nemesis. It is post susceptibility to conjuring with the dialectic. It’s beyond the inference of success by those who are at the helm. It will no longer be hypnotized into hysterical imbecility. It has signalled that it will no longer be confused but convinced.
This refers of course, to the voter who is an independent thinker, tired of the barefaced assassination of truth, insulted by the injection of brazen propaganda by those who act as though politics is a family salt goods shop.
Those voters are out there, as 2015 revealed and because they had twelve years of the alternative, looking across the aisle to what amounts to a one-dimensional cult is not an option.
Like everyone else, they realize that the Opposition does not look like the ethnic fabric of the country, let alone represent the interests of the nation.
If the Coalition wants to make the most out of its remaining term, this is what must preface everything it does, going forward, not the least of which is establishing a Communications Public Relations Agency which is the nerve center of strategy for political viability.
