I WILL discuss two recent political mistakes of the People’s National Congress (PNC) that are basic faults that should not have occurred in the first place. I believe in the existence of a political opposition. No sane person would tell you that they would prefer not to have in the fabric of a country, an opposition party.

Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill on the Freddie Kissoon- Gildarie Show openly said he welcomes the existence of an opposition party, because, to use his words, “it keeps the government on its toes.” It is absolutely useless to prove to someone the need to have opposition party in a country.

In Guyana, the main, and perhaps, only viable opposition party is the People’s National Congress. We are two years away from a national election and the state of the PNC is distressing. Since 2020, the PNC has not safeguarded its physiology but keeps weakening its biology.

My contention is that come 2025, the PNC may suffer a more humiliating fate than it did in the 2006 general election when it lost five parliamentary seats. But it lost those assets to another opposition party – the AFC. In 2025, the PNC will lose maybe more than five seats but this time to the incumbent, PPP. In 2025, there will be no real third party that can shape the outcome of the poll.

If we take the results of the Local Government Elections (LGEs) in the PNC strongholds in the entire country, not only Georgetown, it is a harbinger of things to come. I keep insisting on this page that the LGEs results are of valuable importance to those who study Guyanese politics.

Here are the two misdirected ventures of the PNC that simply add to the compilation of systematic charades that started three years ago with the infamous, invisible statements of poll story. First, Ms. Amanza Walton-Desir revealed on the Freddie Kissoon-Gildarie Show that she saw a video where Vice President, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, did discuss the sea lane access to Venezuela. When I challenged her on the tape, she said I should research it.

But Mrs. Walton-Desir should make it easy for the researcher by assisting with a copy of the video. Why should I research it when Mrs. Walton-Desir has it? Here is a moment of political victory for the PNC if the video is shown to the Guyanese people. Why has it not been shown as yet?

Dr. Gary Best, PNC’s central committee member said last Wednesday on another episode of the Freddie KIssoon-Gildarie Show that in fact there are two such videos of Mr. Jagdeo discussing the sea lane concession. Dr. Best indicated on the show that he will send me the tape.

Why a moment of political brinkmanship is being avoided by Mrs. Walton-Desir and Dr. Best? Do they love VP Jagdeo so much that they do not want to embarrass him? What is this conundrum all about? There is either no video; or there is a video but the PNC cannot gamble with showing it because it is an invented video through artificial intelligence in which Mr. Jagdeo appears to be speaking on the sea lane. Those 18-year-old computer wizards would easily pick up the altered video.

It is political mediocrity of the worst kind to attribute an unpatriotic action to a senior government minister over such a sensitive issue like a threat of invasion by Venezuela, say you have the evidence, but you refuse to make it available. That is self-destructive politics.

The second lapse was the refusal of the Opposition Leader, Aubrey Norton, to attend the St. Vincent confabulation involving six actors -Guyana, Venezuela, Brazil, CARICOM, CELAC and the UN. In an earlier column I disagreed that Mr. Norton should have been invited because given the defined parameter of the agenda, I did not and still do think that Mr. Norton could not have contributed anything innovative to the ambience.

But since he was invited then, even if he felt he would not have been mentally uncomfortable in that kind of diplomatic environment given his “hand-shake ideology,” then one of the three contenders for PNC leader position – Roysdale Forde, Mrs. Walton-Desir, Dr. Best – should have been given the opportunity to taste that kind of high-level international diplomatic circuit that may never come again.

Even if Mr. Norton’s emissary would not have contributed to the final declaration, two values would have accrued to the emissary. An opportunity to share a relationship with leaders of the government in an environment of patriotic duty and to get a sense of how international diplomacy unfolds before your very eyes. I end with a question- did the PNC as a party declined the invitation or was it a unilateral decision by Mr. Norton?