PNC-APNU failed to degrade the PPP/C electoral support

Dear Editor,
In what many observers consider a major accomplishment in the journey towards national unity, the September 1 General and Regional Elections (GRE) have repositioned and reinstated the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) as noted by the majority of media outlets locally and within the region.
In reality, the 1992 “Time to Rebuild, Time for Renewal” thematic of the Jagan/Hinds Administration has been eclipsed, transcended by the Irfaan Ali/Mark Phillips “Guyana is on the Rise with the PPP/C”.
PPP electoral platform messages have advocated, elevated the trust factor to a remarkable degree, as can be discerned from the eligible voter tabulation and declaration of results.
There is also the view expressed by the transactional AFC appeal to voters urging the installation of a “minority” PPP Government, as proposed by Mr Nigel Hughes; what actually transpired was a rejection of neo-Burnhamism, as exemplified by rigged, fraudulent, and corrupt General Elections.
PNC/APNU propaganda and rally focus, for instance, linked Mr Aubrey Norton as a “son of a persona originating from the mining town of Linden,” whilst Prime Minister candidate Juretha Fernandes was touted as being of Amerindian heritage.
As an electoral narrative, this attempt to provincialise or communalise, coupled with indigenismo, clearly crashed, as the voters negated the PNC-APNU at the Linden constituency as well as based on tabulated ballots from Regions Seven, Eight, and Nine.
In terms of manifesto formulations and policy assurances, the Nietzschean Jagdeo “haters” ostensibly expected that the sheer weight of social media misinformation, disinformation, and lies would create fractures and intensify a pluralist-type deviation within the political process
The objective – to reproduce on billboards, surface graffiti, and flat-screen television a prototype Machiavellian nobleman, Bharrat Jagdeo.
In fact, this process commenced even before the PPP’s 32nd Delegates Congress, of April 2024.
It could well be that another important factor that sustained the PPP/C and its electoral campaign, in terms of impacting heterogeneous constituencies and districts, was the methodology adhered to in crafting the manifesto sections, as well as the utilisation of both print and electronic media.
Though there is a tendency to overestimate the social realism impact of the Covid pandemic lockdown and restrictions, and the limitation on relatively large numbers of citizens, it could well be accurate to surmise that the post-Covid years (Y3 and Y4/5 IAA) were characterised by a gradual return to normal.
The tendency for large masses of people to converge at sports and concert stadiums and venues aligns with social behaviour and traits.
Video culture and imagery, to a significant degree, served as both secondary as well as front-edge influencers amongst those population sectors within, say, the 18- to 35-year-old group.
The fact that several leading political personalities of the PNC-APNU declared their support for a second-term Irfaan Ali Government meant that Opposition mega rallies were relatively deficient compared to previous GREs.
An in-depth analysis of younger-aged Guyanese at these cultural events – such as Emancipation Day at the National Park, Phagwah on the public arcades and streets of villages and the Georgetown communities, and especially Champion Series One Day/Night cricket at the National Stadium (all captured by video-screening) – reflects differentia with what has evolved in praxis based on the ratio of voters who turned out and cast ballots.
The disconnect alluded to above stems not exclusively from voter apathy, but importantly must be flagged in terms of choice and in terms of confidence in an opposition adhering to the Constitution and Rules (ROPA).
The reactions over the allegations of gender abuse (i.e., of Vanessa Kissoon and the late PNC stalwart M/ss Amna Ally) are not abstractions or issues that fail to resonate with the more aware and educated social sectors, regardless of political affiliations.
Elections are defined, amongst other factors, by community interactions. Social relations coexist with consumer traits and can distort or refigure public moods, e.g., towards Chinese-owned supermarkets or flood-relief compensation.
Almost certainly, the $100,000 cash grant responses from all eligible age groups could be compared with the numbers – those attending the mega rallies of the major contestants, as well as the level of voter participation in the September 1 GRE.
Tendencies towards people’s struggles for improvements in the quality of their lives have everything to do with democratic, free, and fair elections. However, there are risk issues (as demonstrated in the Trinidad experience) specific to escalating crime, violent home invasions, and corruption.
Corruption can dramatically become dominant within the infrastructure of civil society.
Election cycles impinge on the political process in unpredictable ways. Guyana’s electoral system, combining proportional representation with First Past the Post elements, has been tried and tested.
Amendments to the Representation of the People’s Act (ROPA) have also been introduced.
It is indeed this systematic inclusivity factor that has inspired the Irfaan Ali Government to engage more meaningfully with the People, to provide assurances to investors, to build out transformative projects on a broad scale, and, in that process, coupled with the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), establish an environment that can be equated with both the confidence and trust factors.
Internal to this paradigm is the principle that is existentialist, viz, the Magnitsky factor. “Leadership You Can Trust”. “Progress You Can See”.
It could also be a development by contradiction (as in Walter Rodney: people’s power, no dictator) that the newly formed WIN formation benefited from the transformative infrastructure quadruple “security” programme of the IAA
Propaganda to the effect that “you cannot eat roads…” was a not unimportant aspect of APNU rhetoric. However, it would have been this very connectivity, as discerned from multi-regional 4-lane roadworks, that provided advantages to WIN in mobilising support within Upper Demerara River communities at Linden.
Team Mohamed’s fleet of motor vehicles would have, in some instances, matched the resources of APNU PNC Regional Development Councils (RDCs). That situation may have been replicated in campaigning and garnering village support in Region Seven – Cuyuni-Mazaruni.
Mc Wilfred, interestingly, considers Vice President Jagdeo to have been “very experienced…”. However, a comparison is drawn with Forbes Burnham rather than with the country’s most versatile and accomplished democrat, Dr Cheddi Jagan.
Author Ruel Johnson, in an NCN interview, may also have an insightful viewpoint, viz, the September 1 GRE, when he identifies those trends that have unfolded with and subsequent to the 2018 NOV; this highlighted the crisis and eventual loss of office of the Granger/Harmon/Nagamootoo elite group.
Johnson links the “curve” of policies that have contributed to the formation of a more materially endowed or lower-middle class.
The social-class guardrails, rationalised by the abolition of taxes, family grants, and expanded employment opportunities, have contributed to a level of needs satisfaction for a visible section of citizens.
As a Guyana Prize winner for Best First Novel, Johnson is viewed as a “wordsmith” endowed with important analytical prowess.
“Describing the complot to manipulate the WIN against the PPP/C as a strategy or tactic that backfired, Johnson does not examine other factors, such as income discrepancies and the inflated high cost of living experienced by interior settlements and villages, despite the IAA’s extensive relief and income/job-creation initiatives (Amerindian Cusos and increased subventions for Toshaos and village Captains). However, what is revealing is his grasp of the historical dialectic and the immense popularity of the IAA across the multiple communities of Guyana.
The fact that, on E-Day itself, officials – including a Guyana Police escort – came under attack at the same Baboon location in the Cuyuni by suspected syndicatos is yet another factor that must be part of the process of national security (border security as sovereignty) and, in the final analysis, be categorised as a contributing element in the PPP attaining a landslide victory on September 1, 2025.

Yours sincerely,
Lawrence Rodney