Ali dwarfs predecessor after 100 days

Dear Editor,
NOVEMBER 9/10 was the 100th day since President Irfaan Ali and the PPP/C administration took office after his swearing in on August 2, some five months after the March 2 elections, during which time the APNU-led coalition made several attempts to rig the outcome of the election. The first 100 days is a significant milepost to evaluate how the public views a government. And the North American Caribbean Teachers Association (NACTA), a polling and research organisation founded in America, started conducting an ongoing survey since early November in Guyana on the performance of and other issues related to the PPP administration.  This poll, being conducted by well-known Guyanese pollster and political analyst, Dr. Vishnu Bisram, interviewed hundreds of Guyanese. Dr. Bisram, a prolific writer, has been doing field surveys in Guyana and around the Caribbean region since the 1980s.

The latest NACTA survey has interviewed respondents to represent the demographic composition of the population. The poll reveals that Guyanese of all ethnicities are very satisfied with the performance of the Irfaan Ali-led administration during its first 100 days in office. Based on the preliminary findings of the survey, President Ali has done much better than his predecessor, David Granger, on the 100-day mark.

Just after he was sworn in on May 2015, then President David Granger enjoyed the goodwill of the population with very high approval ratings in the 60s percentile. The population was willing to give the Coalition a chance. The President and his government quickly began losing points when their first act in office was to give themselves a fifty per cent increase in salary, with less than five per cent raise given to public servants and sugar workers who voted to put them in office. Rice farmers were also misled into voting for the Coalition with a promised $9K a bag for paddy; they received just a tenth of that amount during the coalition’s term in office, and they began gravitating away from the Coalition. Goodwill was gradually frittered away with President Granger’s approval rating dropping in the 40s during the election campaign of 2020.

In contrast with Granger, President Ali’s approval rating, says the NACTA poll, is ballooning after taking office. President Ali was elected with just over 51 per cent of the votes. The five-month ordeal to steal the election created a lot of sympathy and goodwill for Ali. Compared with Granger, Ali’s approval ratings just after he was sworn in on August 2 was also in the 60s percentile, and has remained steady or is climbing. The large majority of Guyanese within the diaspora and Guyana approve of the change in government, especially after that brazen effort to rig the election. Ali’s approval rating is now soaring both in the diaspora and in Guyana.

The people support what President Ali has been doing over his first 100 days as head of the government. He has been keeping the promises to the nation made in the Manifesto. They say he has restored confidence in, and taken steps to rebuild the ailing economy with the re-opening of closed sugar estates, encouraging companies that shuttered during the Coalition to re-start operations, creating jobs, reducing taxes, going after electoral bandits and those who looted the Treasury and stole lands, aiding the poor with hampers and other handouts, tackling COVID-19 with more testing and grants, restoring school vouchers, among other measures. The PPP/C government has reduced taxes that were raised by the Coalition, and has found money; cash grants to help people hurting from COVID and the loss of jobs during the Coalition regime.

Respondents in the poll say the President and his PPP/C team is laying the groundwork to transform the economy with gigantic accomplishments in infrastructure, agriculture, telecommunications, oil and gas, mining, housing, health care, education, forestry, and other areas. The respondents, complaining of poor ‘wifi’ and phone service, welcome efforts to privatise the telecom industry, and encourage competition for better delivery of signals. But they say President Ali also needs to tackle constitutional and electoral reforms, and take additional steps for job creation, with so many Guyanese losing their jobs during the Coalition. They are pleased with the government’s commitment of encouraging local agricultural and industrial development in partnership with foreign investors, and support for local control of the emerging oil-and-gas industry.

Yours sincerely,
Patriotic Guyanese