APNU, AFC to meet with members to chart recovery after bleak 2025 elections performance

The A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) are expected to convene talks soon with their respective members following their poor performances at the September 1 General and Regional Elections.

After partnering to contest the 2015 and then the 2020 General and Regional elections in Guyana as a coalition, the APNU and AFC decided to run solo at this year’s September 1 polls after their initial coalition talks proved futile.
The two parties vied against the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) and political newcomers, We Invest in Nationhood (WIN); Assembly of Liberty and Prosperity (ALP) and Forward Guyana Movement (FGM).

The results from last week’s polls, which were officially declared by GECOM on Saturday night, not only showed that the PPP/C won by a landslide, but that the APNU and AFC lost significant support among their bases.
In fact, newcomers like WIN and FGM have gained considerable support, with the first becoming the main parliamentary opposition with 16 seats in the National Assembly and FGM picking up one seat. This means APNU’s seats have reduced to 12 seats while AFC has been completely booted from the parliamentary chambers.

In the last parliament, the APNU and AFC had held 31 seats in the National Assembly, forming the main parliamentary opposition. Of these, the AFC itself occupied nine of those seats, while the remaining 22 were held by APNU politicians.

Assessment
In a brief telephone interview with this newspaper on Monday, AFC Leader Nigel Hughes disclosed that the party will meet shortly with all its members to conduct a thorough analysis of the 2025 polls. “I do have an analysis but I rather share with the party first before I share with the public… The party is going to meet shortly and it will decide what rebuilding is needed. First of all, we have to do an analysis of the results and based on that analysis we will then determine what direction to should take,” the AFC Leader said. Similar sentiments were echoed by APNU Executive Member Ganesh Mahipaul, who noted that the party findings will be released to the public following its conclusion. “We are doing an assessment of the situation and I am sure that at the opportune time we will put out a formal statement that can be carried by all media houses,” Mahipaul said. Once an emerging third force in Guyana, the AFC had won five out of 65 seats in Parliament at the 2006 elections and seven in 2011. It teamed up with the APNU in 2015 and together they won that year’s elections but their term was cut short in 2018 when the Government fell to a no-confidence motion. Since then, both parties’ support has been visibly declining.