PPP/C could win majority if Jagdeo heads elections slate

– Opposition poll finds

Former President Bharrat Jagdeo would be the most formidable candidate that the Opposition parties, A Party for National Unity (APNU) and Alliance For Change (AFC), could face in any upcoming general elections.

This was revealed in a poll conducted by the combined Opposition earlier this month, according to highly placed sources in the party.

Evidently worried that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) would call snap elections in the trail of their controversial stance on a host of issues, the combined Opposition rushed through their polling exercise even as their leaders fanned out on outreaches in PPP/C strongholds.

At the memorial service for PPP’s founder Dr Cheddi Jagan at Babu John, in Berbice around the same time, General Secretary of the PPP/C Clement Rohee had suggested that the elections route might be the only way to break the present “political logjam”. President Donald Ramotar had also alluded to this possibility.

The Opposition parties have been taking identical positions on issues such as cutting the budget, even though the courts have ruled this is illegal, voting against the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLCFT) Amendment Bill, and closing down the sugar industries (on which they later tried to backtrack).

On the other hand, they have been pushing for Local Government Elections. Their poll confirms their suspicions that they would fare very badly at General Elections if they were held now, and they would perform marginally better at Local Government Elections.

Showing broadly similar results to the North American Caribbean Teachers Association (NACTA) poll conducted several weeks before theirs, and which they attempted to discredit, the combined Opposition poll showed that in head-to-head contests, the PPP/C would obtain an absolute majority of 51 per cent if Jagdeo were to head the party’s ticket.

If Ramotar were the candidate, the PPP/C would still emerge victorious in securing the Presidency/Executive with 45 per cent of the votes. In the first instance, APNU would secure 37 per cent of the votes and the AFC four per cent, while in the second; their support would rise marginally to 38 per cent and AFC, to five per cent.

In both instances, APNU’s presidential candidate identified on the poll was present Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), David Granger. The opposition source that provided Guyana Times International with the polling data, said that the Granger faction of the PNCR absolutely refused to place Carl Greenidge as a possible candidate.

The two have been locked in a bitter battle for the control of the PNCR. In Local Government Elections, the combined Opposition poll shows that they would perform much more credibly.

One political analyst, who was contacted to scrutinise the data, said that the Jagdeo factor would appear to pull more of the PPP/C’s traditional voters out from their apathy, which was exhibited at the last elections, in any new elections. It is also possible that the Opposition’s quibbling at the arrangements to treat the former President’s recent illness backfired by stimulating some “sympathy” votes.

The analyst speculated that the Opposition might have floated the name of Jagdeo as a candidate, even though he has indicated he would not be seeking a third term, to discern whether the support for a Ramotar candidacy was “soft”. The results show that this was not significantly so.

In light of their findings, the analyst predicted that the Opposition will continue to push for Local Government Elections. Those findings by the combined Opposition poll, concluded the analyst, exposed the baseness of the orchestrated campaign by the Opposition parties and their operatives in the media to vilify Jagdeo and to deny the sterling role he played in returning economic stability and security for citizens in Guyana.