THE writing is on the wall, and there is no doubt in the minds of the Guyanese public that a strong message is going to be sent to the opposition, the People’s National Congress Reform-led A Partnership for National Unity Coalition (PNC/R-APNU) when voters cast their ballots on Monday.
The PNC/R-APNU is going to get a wake-up call when the results are known hopefully by Tuesday, if all the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) systems in place for the elections go as planned.
Firstly, the APNU is projected to perform much more poorly than it did in 2018. This is, primarily because of poor leadership and lack of oversight given to the party’s elections committee by its leader, Aubrey Norton.

There is no strategic plan for the elections, just hurriedly and hastily dragged together public engagements and meetings in the selective local constituencies and areas which have managed to attract a few party supporters.
APNU has not managed, either by itself or working closely with those election groups that seemingly are independent, to pull off the mega or big rallies at the local level. This is because the party is not getting the electoral support and buy-in, and financiers were not willing to take such a huge risk to fund the APNU’s divisive and underwhelming local government campaign.
After all, there was no Alliance for Change or Working Peoples Alliance to calm the alleged racists and black elitists down who many feared were power drunk and could not be trusted.
There was no effort at stringing together a detailed Communication Plan to market the APNU at the local level using social media, new media and traditional media. When one examines the messages and themes that APNU promulgated to voters, most times it was racist, piecemeal, lacked the backing of facts and information and seemed farfetched from the reality of words. It appears too reactive, confrontational and with same-old messages about the same old things.

The local government campaign messages were not futuristic or new. they did not have diversity or seek to have diversity in the ethnicity, race, and religious composition of candidates who presented themselves for public inspection.
Secondly, APNU’s decision to not contest 291 and 25 out of 80 constituencies, LAAs and towns will haunt it on Tuesday when it sees its numbers dwindling in democratic councils, municipalities and towns. Also, GECOM has already declared that there was no contest in 13 constituencies.
No doubt, APNU will cry wolf and tears will flow while as per usual blaming the PPP/C for gerrymandering, voters’ lists, and fraud. But this looming or intended fate was known long before the elections. It did not help that APNU tried but was unsuccessful in delaying the local polls with their barrage of conceited court actions.
If the PPP/C won 61 per cent of votes in 2018 while the APNU won 34 per cent, it is predicted that the former could pick up 85 or more per cent leaving the latter with just 15 per cent. It is predicted that the PPP/C might take control of key battlegrounds, including those key areas or communities in Georgetown, Linden, New Amsterdam and Bartica.
It is still left up in the air, whether the PPP/C will win an additional town apart from Lethem.

Recall, every party in the government of a country in the Caribbean and to a lesser extent, South America that lost the local polls in this manner, lost the upcoming general election. Similarly, every single opposition party that loses the local polls in a country hardly ever gets the support of the electorate in time for the general elections and goes on to lose that too. It happened in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados.
Thirdly, when the APNU is finished performing poorly in the elections on Monday, which it will, the party’s Executive, which is controlled by the PNC/R, will have a tough decision to make, and a bitter pill to swallow.
It will need to do some introspection about the direction it is going, and who is at the helm.
What is responsible for its defeat? Is Aubrey Norton worth leading the PNC/R or APNU into the elections of 2025? What is the mood of the people? What are they going to do now politically? Which phrase are they going to use from their treasure trove of excuses to justify their poor showing? Are they going to come with ‘cheated, frauded’ or ‘the list’ as an excuse for their loss? Are they going to lick the wounds of their defeat, get up, and move ahead?

Finally, with such an impending beating, APNU-PNC or whatever else they choose to call themselves, should withdraw soon after to get their affairs in order.
Too much fighting with the same excuses. This is not the PNC/R Forbes Burnham, Desmond Hoyte and Robert Corbin fought for; this is not the PNC/R that David Granger inherited. So, the battle for the soul and the future of the PNC, as an effective political unit, will commence after June 12, 2023.