IN the two-party political systems and societies that dominate Caribbean politics, major parties are assessed not just by what they say and do in opposition, but how they ‘walk the talk’ in government.

Ditto Guyana, where the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and the People’s National Congress (PNC) both have set say-and-do records in and out of office, the respective record cards will also be read differently by supporters of each party at and between general elections.

But while the PPP has been the Mother of All Guyana Parties, the PNC has a longer record card as a ruling party.

Neither party is exactly what founders Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham left on departure and both have also wedded into alliances and amalgamations to adjust to post-Jagan and post-Burnham times.

Today, both parties [have] a 30-year record of achievements since 1992 (when internationally observed and approved elections heralded a late-20th Century return to electoral democracy) and 2022 (entering the age of 21st Century oil).

The PNC presided over the initial entry and establishment of the rules and regulations for the national landscape in which the international oil companies will extract, sell and compensate the new ‘Black Gold’, eventually quite unwilling ceding the decision-making to the PPP as demanded by the people’s expressed political will in the 2020 elections.

It doesn’t surprise anyone in Guyana that the two major parties are still at odds on the future of oil just as before the last general elections, the only major difference (to most) being regime.

The jury can still be said to be out on how the PNC handled the new oil factor during its last term and same with the PPP at the start of its current term, but it’s already quite evident that the parties, in office, see oil with very different eyes.

Naturally, opposition parties will ‘oppose for opposing sake’ as per their expected role(s), but only the PPP has served with a two-term administration (under President Bharrat Jagdeo), while the PNC’s very transparent, crystal-clear effort to equal the score evaporated under the heat of the 2021 Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) ruling that turned the 2020 electoral dream into a political nightmare.

President Irfan Ali and the PPP/C administration are going all out to show they can do more to ensure more oil dollars are spent for more popular and national development causes at all levels through creation of new jobs and opportunities and introduction of new processes, rules and regulations to continue where the APNU/AFC left off.

Likewise, as per normal, the PNC-R and the APNU+AFC Alliance in Parliament have not yet found any areas of agreement with the PPP/C’s approach, elements of both related entities accusing the Ali administration of most of the same things they were accused of in office, warning against ‘spending too much too quickly’ and taking issue with the related (Natural Resources and Local Content) legislation for like and different reasons.

But if anything, the current administration has been able to guide the oil boom in directions that have seen more benefits therefrom flowing more directly to communities, in greater amounts and over wider spaces, touching more communities and regions as both revenues and projections increase.

The Opposition is yet to totally settle its post-Congress in-house differences over how far and wide the new party leader will be allowed to influence the parliamentary party.

And there’s no sign the Brigadier and the Opposition Leader are about to together wave the white flag, or throw the towel into the ring at Sophia.

In the circumstances, since taking over from the Brigadier, the new general has been putting all his decades of accumulated experience in the trenches into strategic and tactical use, deploying all available ground forces to the front while holding decorated retirees and lieutenants with counter battle-plans at bay — and maintaining control of the Situation Room.