Opposition’s quest for relevance – here is a radical idea for them

Before we get into this week’s column, two things we would like to highlight which have relevance to the kind of Opposition parties in Guyana. First, the President of Venezuela visited a Caricom Member State, Grenada, and wore a lapel map (brooch) prominently featuring a significant portion of Guyana’s territory as part of Venezuela. The Venezuelan President deliberately made a statement, using a Caricom nation, Grenada, to aggressively push Maduro’s narrative that Essequibo is part of Venezuela. The Guyana Government has since issued a letter of protest rejecting Delcy Rodriguez’s blatant illegal action. Ruminations have not heard a single word coming from the Opposition in Guyana denouncing Delcy Rodriguez’s action.
The second item relates to the election in Hungary. After 16 years of domination in Hungary, strongman Victor Orban lost the election and a new Prime Minister came in with a landslide victory. Polls closed at 6 pm in Hungary and by 9 pm, Victor Orban conceded defeat to the new Prime Minister. There were more than six million voters eligible to vote. In Guyana, with less than a million voters on the list and with less than 500,000 who actually vote, we take days, weeks and even months before we can declare a winner and, even after years, the losers refuse to concede defeat. Except for 2015 when the PPP, in spite of its concerns about possible cheating, conceded defeat once GECOM declared the results, the PNC-led Opposition parties have never been able to concede defeat. The present Opposition has not yet conceded defeat in the September 2025 elections. For that matter, the Opposition is yet to concede defeat for the March 2020 elections, even as those elections took five months before the winning party was declared.
In a healthy democracy, Opposition parties must demonstrate the capacity to concede defeat, as the PPP did in Guyana in 2015. The PNC-led Opposition parties and the now new WIN party in Election 2025 continue to not concede their defeat. If a strongman like Victor Orban has the decency to concede in Hungary, why is it that in Guyana, outside of the PPP, Opposition parties cannot accept the will of the people?
Since the September 2025 General and Regional Elections in Guyana, the Opposition parties have been in a desperate quest for relevance. They have shown themselves to be clueless, unable to compete with the Government for ideas, to challenge the Government on its plans and implementation programmes. The lead Opposition party’s (WIN’s) focus has been on its leader and his family. Everything is about Azruddin Mohamed and his family. The PNC/APNU cannot find traction for any of the approaches they have tried. Amanza Desir-Walton is floating. The combined Opposition in Guyana today have ceded their responsibilities as Opposition parties to the now defunct Stabroek News, the Kaieteur News and a set of Opposition-oriented TV and radio stations.
The Government of Guyana ensured that it rejected the Venezuelan President’s blatant disregard for Guyana’s territorial rights. While desperately searching for relevance, would it be such a radical idea for the Opposition to show solidarity with the Government on this issue? While we believe that Guyana is solidly united, as the Rock of Gibraltar, on the fact that Essequibo is ours, it still would be nice for the Opposition to take a minute to join with the Government to make explicit our unconditional unity in rejecting Venezuela’s reckless claim on our Essequibo.
While it should not be a radical idea, the truth is that the present Opposition ignores all opportunity to join with the Government on basic things we should not have a difference over. Take the issue of garbage. We all agree that we need a cleaner Guyana. Since March 2020, President Irfaan Ali has been promoting a cleaner Guyana as part of our transformation. That cleaner Guyana includes transforming Georgetown into the Garden City once again. While periodic clean-up campaigns cannot replace a continuous programme, a periodic campaign serves to highlight our commitment as a nation and serves to make every Guyanese a part of the cleaner Guyana mission.
While this may sound like a radical idea for the opposition, Ruminations urges the Opposition parties to join President Irfaan Ali and his Government in mobilising the nation for a cleaner Guyana. For Guyana’s sake, could the Opposition parties not show up with their leaders and supporters and join the effort?
Thousands of persons across Guyana, from individuals to churches, NGOs, and businesses, came out and joined the President, the Prime Minister, Ministers and other senior Government officials in the clean-up exercise this past weekend. At no point did the President or Minister Deodat Indar, who heads the Committee for a Cleaner Guyana, ever said that these periodic campaigns represent the totality of the efforts. As far as we know, the President and the Government have always promoted these campaigns as a call to the nation for us to do better. The Government has been investing in establishing more garbage sites and in providing more equipment. President Ali and the AG have announced stricter laws to govern littering and garbage disposal. Is it too radical for the Opposition to join with Government on this matter?
The most glaring example of the non-cooperation of the Opposition is seen in Georgetown, one of the dirtiest cities in Caricom. Georgetown is governed by a PNC-led APNU Mayor and City Council. The PNC-led Mayor and City Council have had decades of opportunities to lead from the front. But the Mayor and the City Council appear comfortable as they wallow in the messiness of Georgetown. Their boycott of the Government’s clean-up effort is simply reprehensible.