‘Incumbency fatigue’ possible cause of losing majority – Ramkarran

The People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPPC) says it has repositioned itself to examine all possible factors that have contributed to it not to securing a majority win in the recent general and regional elections.

Speaking at a media briefing on Tuesday, Central Executive member and former Speaker of the National Assembly, Ralph Ramkarran said that the party has assessed “the current situation which resulted from the November 28, 2011 General and Regional Elections”. He said that it was observed that while the PPP/ C secured the largest number of votes and seats in the National Assembly, much focus was placed by the Central Executive Committee of the party at its first meeting after the elections on the reasons for the PPP/ C not winning a majority over the combined opposition as in previous elections.

A number of underlying factors, he said, resulted in that loss of majority and due to the assessments and conclusions given at that meeting, Ramkarran said “a menu of action was agreed to address these factors. An immediate implementation of this plan of action was recognised. Corrective action has been undertaken.”

According to Ramkarran, the question of incumbency fatigue must be taken into consideration. “We are lucky that our party is deep rooted, our party has the support of a substantial number of people and we are fortunate for the support, and we have had it for so many years, but these things happen and while the development of the country has progressed very significantly, it has not touched everybody. There are still poor people in Guyana, and people have a right to become impatient. I think that that and other reasons exist.”

Meanwhile, Environment and Natural Resources Minister Robert Persaud, who was the campaign manager for the party during the election period, said Election Day arrangements, the arrangements put in place by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), logistics and ground work, all have to be taken into account by the public. He said those issues were examined in detail by the central executive of the party, noting that supporters became complacent in many of the party’s support areas.

“… we recognise we have to do much more work both at the level of the party and government level, and I want to assure you that in reviewing the factors there is a strong sense of unity, commitment, will, and resolve to fix those underlying factors and a plan of action has been agreed to which is in the implementation phase; and I want to remind you that this is a party that has a lot of grounding in the masses.”

Persaud added that the party and government is looking at ways of building and expanding all areas in the country not only its support base. “We will redouble and retriple our efforts in those areas,” he told the media.

When asked whether the party would take blame of failing to secure the majority in the National Assembly, Persaud said: “You know that at the end of the day we all thought the results would have been different, we all went into the elections with a sense of optimism. It was a collective effort, there was no manager but, you know, I think all of us on deeper reflection would have to look at our roles and how we could have done things differently and learn from this.”

He said the situation facing the ruling party is way better than that facing the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) after the opposition, the People’s National Party (PNP) secured a two-thirds majority win. “In our case, we got the largest share of the votes, we got the largest number of seats in the NA; it is just the situation where… by one seat we were not able to hold onto the majority in Parliament, but we are a functioning government, we have the presidency, the executive, and we are a party in government, and that is the reality.”

Minister Persaud added that it was observed that there are things that could have been done differently and the party is not “oblivious to areas where there were weaknesses or oversight and over optimism.”

When questioned by the media as to whether the shift in the party’s campaign strategies may have resulted in the loss of parliamentary majority, he had this to say: “I am not sure whether that particular aspect to which you referred is the contributing factor, as we said there were a number of underlying factors.

The PPP/ C, though securing 32 seats in the elections, did not manage to gain the parliamentary majority. The combined opposition, the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) secured a combined 33 seats in the National Assembly giving them a one-seat edge over the minority government. This new dynamic was put to the test on the resumption of Parliament last Thursday when the Speaker and deputy speaker were elected – the PPP/ C had no say.