THERE was once a time when electoral outcomes in Guyana were easily predicted. All the People’s Progressive Party had to do was submit a list, present candidates and campaign, victory was assured. Now follow this.

This occurred between 1994 to 2006 and it resulted in senior leaders of that party boasting grandiloquently: ‘we have the numbers’. The 2011 Guyana election results ended this guarantee, the PPP won 32 of 65 seats and the combined parliamentary opposition comprising the APNU and the AFC commanded 33 seats. Stay with me. This mode of a political transformation in Guyana’s political landscape was consolidated in 2015 which resulted in the defeat of the incumbent and the ascension to power of Guyana’s second coalition government. At the heart of this development, there is the beautiful story of the rise of the silent centre.

The centre or middle ground in Guyanese politics first significantly raised its head on October 5th, 1960 when Peter D’Aguiar, the Manpower Citizens’ Association (MPCA) and some Portuguese businessmen formed The United Force (TUF). The Manpower Citizens’ Association represented the interest of dissatisfied Indian leaders and was even attractive enough to lure Stephen Campbell, Guyana’s first indigenous Member of Parliament. The idea of being in the centre of the battle between Guyana’s largest political parties was consolidated in this party which represented the rise of the centre in Guyanese politics. This small party gained prominence when it became part of Guyana’s first coalition government in 1964.

Ten years later, third force politics came back in force with the formation of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA). This time around, it was serious business under the leadership of academic par excellence, Dr. Walter Rodney. The WPA was a genuine urban middle-class outfit with a resistance philosophy guided by the Afro-Guyanese intelligentsia. This political party was a thorn in the side in the Forbes Burnham regime and an annoyance for the PPP. The WPA remains the most notable emergence of a genuine third force prior to the birth of the Alliance for Change, founded in 2005.

The political consequences of PPP domination and internal party disagreements on both sides of the political divide produced Guyana’s modern centre which resulted in the PPP being defeated in 2015.

Here is the thing, there has always been a debate on whether there are genuine independent thinkers who go to the polls to vote strictly on principles, values and issues connected to the manifestos of political parties. There are those who posit, pessimistically so, this does not exist and Guyanese are doomed to continue the metaphysical battle of the Afro-Guyanese dominated PNC versus Indo-Guyanese PPP. I have been part of numerous political discussions where I was dared to show that Guyanese can vote without ethnic and tribal considerations.

I gladly oblige to consistently submit there is a silent centre since 1964 with the formation of the TUF. If it never existed, we may have had the luxury to make these literal and historical references. Secondly, the 2011 and 2015 elections will forever remain etched in the annals of our history as the stark and immovable example of the existence of people who think of country first.

Political parties must know when hardened battle lines are drawn, the centre is deterred. The now and future of Guyanese politics is the centre and political parties who attract and retain the most national leaders who put the country first will always have the biggest advantage.