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Recent history has shown that the non-coastal and youth voting have lagged far behind the coastal over-35 voting.

 

Race-based voting continues to be the norm for the majority of voters, including the young voters who have had parental training in fear of the other race from birth. This cycle of home-grown fear will take at least another election cycle to be eroded.

 

Guyanese for the most part in the rural areas have low expectations in life and are comfortable with their current lot - some timely land reforms and commodity price hikes have seen to that. The urban population continues to be ho-hum - much like the last US mid-terms where the fervent GOP voters turned out in massive numbers and the complacent uncomplaining Democratic voters couldn't be bothered.

 

Emigration patterns continue to affect both major races and mixed-race. It's like an equal-opportunity phenomenon.

 

What does this mean for the make-up of the typical voters in Guyana - jut like all the other cycles I'm afraid, except the last one. In the last elections an independent 3rd party - the AFC - took disaffected voters away from the major parties, moreso from the PPP as the AFC had more Indo lead players, and there was a new class of disaffected Indians. That dynamic went into the dustbin of history with the recent coalition of APNU and the AFC.

 

It's same ole, same ole in this cycle. Maybe the May elections will open some eyes.

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I think that there is some basis in what you are saying Kari but if you look at the elections of 2011 it is clear the PPP no longer attracts the majority of the electorate.

 

The Fact is that many of these AFC supporters I would say the majority of indian and Amerindian AFC supporters i know do not care about race etc.

 

Everyone claims that the AFC lost black votes in 2011 because people went back to the PNC because of race and ramjattan that is an over exaggeration.

 

The fact is the Ramjattan campaign was weak to begin with the AFC was almost a dormant party post 2006. Many people don't realize this.

 

The people who joined the AFC and many who have continued to support Moses and the AFC will continue to support them. This perception that voters will not vote for a coalition government is not based on any work speaking to people on the ground or going to visit these amerindian communities where the PPP uses aggressive starve and feed mechanisms to control those communities.

 

Guyana is fed up with the PPP, Indians are suffering just as bad as any other race in Guyana and many  seem to ignore that.

FM

In the 2011 elections PPP got 19 +13 = 32 Seats with 166,340 votes or 48.62% - a decline of 4 seats from the 2006 elections.

In the 2011 elections APNU got16 + 10 = 26 Seats with 139,678 votes or 40.83% - an addition of 3 seats from the 2006 elections.

In the 2011 elections AFC got 5 + 2 = 7 Seats with 35,333 votes or 10.33% - an addition of 2 seats from the 2006 elections.

In the 2011 elections the UF lost its 1 seat from the 2006 to account for the PPP net -4 when adding the APNU/AFC net of 5.

 

A binary PPP/PNC fight will inevitably bring the PPP-disenchanted that would go to the AFC to stay at home or vote PPP. This would be more than enough to get back the coveted 1% for the PPP to continue to hold the Presidency as well as to form a majority government.

Kari

There was a commodities boom in 1974- 76 and the ruling PNC received a foreign exchange windfall. Rice earnings more than offset the the oil imports from Trinidad and the US PL480 wheat flour satisfied the roti needs.

 

Burnham felt emboldened to nationalize the Bausite and sugar industries whose marketing were still controlled by Phillip Brothers and Booker/Tate & Lyle. The Sugar agreements with the US and the EU masked Guyana's cost per pound that was way above commercial world market prices. In other words fools' gold. Calcined Bauxite where Guyana had a world monopoly was about to be made obsolescent by materials science technology for stuff that lined the kilns of smelters. Guyana's agriculture infrastructure still required huge capex as well as continuing operational costs. There was not a large private sector to help with government finances.

 

Then came the drop in commodities prices and the banning.

 

Then came the illicit trading and the routes it opened up. And don't forget mass emigration.

 

The illicit trading led to the losing of Guyana's innocence as it spawned the Blackie London saga that was a fore-runner to the Mash Breakout and the 
Phantom.

 

All along Guyanese went about their business clad in the comfort of race-baced political voting.

Kari
Originally Posted by HM_Redux:

I think that there is some basis in what you are saying Kari but if you look at the elections of 2011 it is clear the PPP no longer attracts the majority of the electorate.

 

The Fact is that many of these AFC supporters I would say the majority of indian and Amerindian AFC supporters i know do not care about race etc.

 

Everyone claims that the AFC lost black votes in 2011 because people went back to the PNC because of race and ramjattan that is an over exaggeration.

 

The fact is the Ramjattan campaign was weak to begin with the AFC was almost a dormant party post 2006. Many people don't realize this.

 

The people who joined the AFC and many who have continued to support Moses and the AFC will continue to support them. This perception that voters will not vote for a coalition government is not based on any work speaking to people on the ground or going to visit these amerindian communities where the PPP uses aggressive starve and feed mechanisms to control those communities.

 

Guyana is fed up with the PPP, Indians are suffering just as bad as any other race in Guyana and many  seem to ignore that.

HM there is an engaged AFC supporter and then there are people who registered protest votes.

 

Has any one analyzed what has happened to those who voted AFC in the PPP strong holds in Berbice?  They knew Nagamootoo as a PPP man.  They are unhappy with the direction that the PPP has gone, so they supported a man who they thought that they can trust.

 

If Trotman had gone there would he have received as many votes.  NO! Certainly not Nigel Hughes, who is seen in many corners as anti Indian, because he is outspoken on Afro Guyanese issues.

 

Like or not but even the AFC makes racial calculations in its strategies, except for this last stunt with APNU, which might be more reflective of Nagamootoo's ambitions.

 

Now that Nagamootoo is bedding down with the party who they feared all their lives, why the thinking that they aren't confused?  Did the PNC suddenly become "nice and cuddly" when as recently as 2006 they were linked in the eyes of many Indians with violence towards them?

 

And yes every one thinks that they aren't racist. That its the "other guy" who is racist, so I question when people deny the role of race in their lives.

 

If Guyanese didn't think race we would have the same hybrid population of nations like the DR (and they have skin color issues rather than racial issues). 

 

Instead we have 80% of our population having well defined ethnic identities, this determining much of what they do and think. And when this clashes with what another group does or thinks then tensions arise and people use measures to protect themselves, voting being the mechanism which Guyanese use.

 

In 2011 the vast majority of coastal Guyanese voted race as the AFC only received 11% of the votes.  Even in Regions 5 and 6 the PPP won the vast majority of the Indian votes.

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Originally Posted by HM_Redux:

 

The fact is the Ramjattan campaign was weak to begin with the AFC was almost a dormant party post 2006. Many people don't realize this.

 

 

 

maybe you didn't but many others did.  Indeed the AFC lost a lot of support from people, myself included, when they became dormant.  If they had problems they should have been public about it, and they would have gotten help.  But instead silence.

 

We had heated debates about them in that era.

 

If the APNU/AFC stunt doesn't work the AFC will become even more dormant.  Their original role was to shift Guyanese away from the PPP and PNC. They have now lost the right to demand this of people.

FM
Last edited by Former Member
Originally Posted by Kari:

In the 2011 elections PPP got 19 +13 = 32 Seats with 166,340 votes or 48.62% - a decline of 4 seats from the 2006 elections.

In the 2011 elections APNU got16 + 10 = 26 Seats with 139,678 votes or 40.83% - an addition of 3 seats from the 2006 elections.

In the 2011 elections AFC got 5 + 2 = 7 Seats with 35,333 votes or 10.33% - an addition of 2 seats from the 2006 elections.

In the 2011 elections the UF lost its 1 seat from the 2006 to account for the PPP net -4 when adding the APNU/AFC net of 5.

 

A binary PPP/PNC fight will inevitably bring the PPP-disenchanted that would go to the AFC to stay at home or vote PPP. This would be more than enough to get back the coveted 1% for the PPP to continue to hold the Presidency as well as to form a majority government.

Stop KARI.

 

You got to do back the maths.

PPP vs the ANTI - PPP alliance.

FM
Originally Posted by KishanB:
Originally Posted by Kari:

In the 2011 elections PPP got 19 +13 = 32 Seats with 166,340 votes or 48.62% - a decline of 4 seats from the 2006 elections.

In the 2011 elections APNU got16 + 10 = 26 Seats with 139,678 votes or 40.83% - an addition of 3 seats from the 2006 elections.

In the 2011 elections AFC got 5 + 2 = 7 Seats with 35,333 votes or 10.33% - an addition of 2 seats from the 2006 elections.

In the 2011 elections the UF lost its 1 seat from the 2006 to account for the PPP net -4 when adding the APNU/AFC net of 5.

 

A binary PPP/PNC fight will inevitably bring the PPP-disenchanted that would go to the AFC to stay at home or vote PPP. This would be more than enough to get back the coveted 1% for the PPP to continue to hold the Presidency as well as to form a majority government.

Stop KARI.

 

You got to do back the maths.

PPP vs the ANTI - PPP alliance.

I am aware that many of the anti PPP voters are also anti PNC.  They will either not vote, or chose the lesser of two evils. 

 

Given that most of the people in this camp are Indians I expect that the PPP will gain more from this than the PNC.  Most anti PPP blacks already vote PNC or AFC.

FM

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