THE CAMPAIGN for Guyana’s general election on November 28 is now in full swing.
When nominations for presidential, parliamentary and regional candidates took place last Thursday, seven parties were identified by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
By Monday, just the trio of major parliamentary parties had secured the commission’s approval of their lists of candidates.
The approved parties competing for the presidency and 65-member parliament are the incumbent People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), the main opposition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) – largely the old People’s National Congress (PNC) rebranded with a couple of insignificant minor parties; and the Alliance For Change (AFC).
Last week, prior to the submission of nominations, a tracking poll conducted by the North American Caribbean Teachers Association pointed to a return to state power for an unprecedented fifth consecutive five-year term by the incumbent PPP/C, now under the presidential leadership of Donald Ramotar, the party’s long-serving general secretary.
In the previous August 2006 national election, the PPP/C, then under the presidential leadership of outgoing Head of State Bharrat Jagdeo, had recorded its fourth consecutive victory by winning 36 of the 65 seats.
The then PNC, under the presidential and party leadership of Robert Corbin, won 22 seats, while the AFC, contesting its first national election following formation just over a year earlier, had taken five seats, the remaining two going to minority parties – The United Force (TUF) and ROAR (Guyana Action Party/Rise, Organize and Rebuild Guyana).
For the coming poll, TUF’s leader Manzoor Nadir, having earlier survived a leadership challenge, is contesting as a candidate of the PPP/C – not surprising, as he is the incumbent party’s Minister of Labour.
With the PNC losing the previous two elections under current leader Robert Corbin as presidential candidate, the party opted to face this month’s challenge under the umbrella of APNU, with an ex-Brigadier of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), David Granger, as its presidential candidate, while Corbin remains leader of the PNC.
Granger’s running mate as prime ministerial candidate, Dr Rupert Roopnarine, was once a co-leader of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), known as the party of the assassinated historian Dr Walter Rodney, who was killed by a bomb planted by a former GDF sergeant.
Now the WPA, which is on record as holding the PNC responsible for Rodney’s murder, is one of APNU’s “partners” in the quest to remove the PPP on November 28.
Another surprise APNU candidate is former Police Commissioner Winston Felix, who had retired amid a highly controversial broadcast of a tape-recorded telephone conversation he had with a then PNC parliamentarian at a time of serious gun-related killings and disruptions.
Since murders, armed robberies and narco-trafficking crimes are among the issues in the current election campaign, allegations have been flowing across platforms with APNU’s ex-GDF Granger and ex-top cop Felix being in the firing line, while the incumbent PPP/C and its outgoing president are verbally blasted with claims of sheltering drug traffickers and those involved in financial corruption.
The AFC has managed to spring a few surprises of its own with candidates who have left the two main parties. Best known among them are Dr Richard Vanwest Charles, a son-in-law of the late President Burnham and a former Health Minister; and Moses Nagamootoo, long-standing stalwart of the PPP and a former Minister of Information. Nagamootoo’s ambition was to have been the PPP’s presidential candidate.
According to GECOM, 46 per cent of voters are between 18 and 35, and they could prove decisive in determining on November 28 the next government of Guyana.
