OPINION: PPP getting in the groove with Elections 2025, Opposition still to move from Elections 2020

Last Updated on Wednesday, 10 January 2024, 19:37 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

Who let the dogs out?  Well, Bharrat Jagdeo did.  Ministers of the government have been set free to speak to the press.  They have been given carte blanche to roam across the villages and hamlets of Guyana and to spread the good news of the good works of the PPP in the last three years.  It is lining up of the troops and giving them their marching orders.  November 2025 national and regional elections; mark calendars.  Go get ‘em, boys and girls.  Give them hell, a la that former US President renowned for his shooting from the hip, Harry Truman.  Though just under two years away, the PPP well-oiled machinery is moving through the gears, as another life-and-death season comes onboard in sunny Guyana.  The locals call it elections.  I think I will leave it at that, since to do otherwise would be insulting to the democratic process.

Did somebody ask where is the PNC and what it is doing relative to elections 2025?  The party is a little preoccupied, and has its hands full.  It is focused on elections 2020.  That’s right, elections 2020.  While the PPP is already on the move and getting in the groove for late next year, the Opposition (whatever it is PNC, AFC, APNU, or some combination thereof) is still fixated on and trapped in the ancient history of the 2020 elections, and whatever it is petitioning the courts to look upon judiciously.  My question is simple: what’s the point?  For even if in the longest of longshot scenarios, the courts were to look favorably upon the Opposition’s petition(s), nothing changes.  And, secondly, if ever there was a lost cause, that is one.  The Opposition’s energies are best marshalled and focused on the 2025 elections.  It might be presumptuous of me to offer that morsel of goodwill, but it does have some thinking behind it, if not actual merit.  I recall recommending as early as September 2020, that preparation for the next round of national elections start there and then.  Apparently, nobody listened, other than the PPP.  All things holding true, the party had never stopped campaigning, as every garland, every bouquet, every whistlestop (sorry, I lost track and thought I was back in Uncle Sam country) was transformed into an election moment.  The next one, not the last one.

Because of all of this, I state where I stand from now, and in the most unambiguous way: Elections 2025 is the for the PPP to lose, so much it has it sewn up.  I think that even if it were to be sloppy and were to try to lose, it couldn’t and it wouldn’t.  First, Bharrat Jagdeo would not know what to do with himself, and is likely to get ill.  Second, Exxon knows when it is on to a good thing, and would not let the PPP self-destruct.  Meddling, who taakin bout meddlin?  And third, it is an indication of where I assess the Opposition to be in this whole elections shebang.  In plain Guyanese: the paaty ain’t reddy yet…

Now there are two things that bear watching, and it is not coincidental that one is now being nudged to the front burner.  It is the longstanding, long floating, and long stuck fraud cases from the last elections.  I have to admire how there are these pockets of PPP interest and noise to get moving on those cases.  My thinking is how fit and proper now that elections are once more on the horizon.  The PPP gets to talk about democracy, fair play, and justice, while keeping up a full body beating of the Opposition with those fraud reminders.  A secondary return from the fraud cases is that old saw: ‘see how deh de tryin fuh raab yuh.’  From bottom-house to village head to koker top, that will be the narrative, and it is a good one with unending value.

The second issue is what is called V4V, meaning Venezuelans for Votes, and this is Bharrat Jagdeo’s own brainchild and toy baby.  I am watching to determine how the Opposition reacts to this, and how much traction it gets.  This is where Jagdeo is at his best, when power or his hold on power is involved.  Forget about fighting Exxon for better for Guyanese.  Where is the return in that for Jagdeo, plus getting the people at Exxon upset?  In the next breath, V4V has muscle, has some provisions on its side, and looks like something worth running with; if there is anyone who will dare to make that a test case, it is the man from Robb Street.

It should be noticed that this piece has been almost all about the PPP and its plans and its early push.  I wish there was more that I could have said about the Opposition, anyone of the groups, but there is a problem.  There is no material to work with, nothing to make a statement on, or on which to take a stand.  Now it is on to November 2025, which is right around the corner.  As they say under that flag with rings: let the games begin.  Truthfully, they never stopped.