THE 2025 election is in November 2025. At the rate in which time is ticking away (we are at the end of April and 2024 just began after Christmas 2023). The election season begins months before the day of voting. I think Irfaan Ali will increase his party’s parliamentary seats. The question is by how much and if he can pull off a two-thirds majority.

Here is how I see the election scene. I think the PPP will be re-elected. Political theory supports such a prediction. Class-divided societies endure revolutionary upheavals because the demands for the distribution of the country’s wealth are normally rejected by the ruling classes.

Revolution comes about because there are strata who feel that they do not share in the country’s wealth. In no other country is that feeling greater than in the United States, a country with stupendous wealth under a capitalist system. But wealth is incredibly skewed in favour of three layers in the bourgeoisie – the lower bourgeoisie, the upper bourgeoisie, and the expanding mega-rich.

For a country so rich, the numbers of poor people are simply beyond belief. One theory of America’s capitalist system is that it is not normal capitalism but a monstrous hybrid. Some economists say what the US has is not capitalism but some other ism. A successful capitalist system is China and Scandinavia with China having less inequality than Scandinavia.

In Guyana, petrodollars are being used which allows for the distribution of wealth. Of course, you cannot expect that in a petro-economy, the petty bourgeoisie will not expand. But in both the 2023 and 2024 budgets wealth is being shared that will attenuate class and ethnic antagonism. My take on Irfaan Ali is that he is a 1992 Jaganite.

In 1992, Jagan agreed to the expansion of capitalism in Guyana but Jagan was inflexible that the state must play a leading role in eradicating class inequalities. I believe that if Burnham’s economy did not collapse in 1980, we could have had a fair share of wealth distribution. The difference between Burnham and Jagan is that Jagan would have allowed for political power to be diffused. Burnham as a matter of deep, ideological embrace gave no recognition to the democratic interplay of political pluralism. That was his intergang.

President Ali will follow the Cheddi Jagan of 1992 and I believe he has exceeded Jagan in the context of crossover of ethnic support. The Ali presidency is infused with the personality of the immediate post-colonial ambition of Third World leaders endowed with the dream of post-colonial equality.

The question is can he get the 10 more seats to acquire a two-thirds majority? It will be hard work but it can be a reality. The PNC lost five seats to Raphael Trotman’s third party in 2006. One of the factors was the uninspiring leadership of Robert Corbin. Corbin knew his time was up and he did the admiring thing to concede the subsuming of the PNC under a bigger umbrella in 2010.
The PNC is facing the identical dilemma with Norton but the 10 seats that Irfaan needs may be easier to get under Norton. Two factors explain this. There were less infighting and leadership arrogance under Corbin than Norton. Anyone who knows Norton for more than 10 years will tell that the “I know it all syndrome” is deeply embedded in him.

Secondly, if the ballots at the August congress have been tampered with, the PNC will certainly face implosion, the reasoning being very interesting and fascinating. All the challengers feel that they can preserve the PNC’s electoral staying power if Norton is not the leader in 2025. Actually, they feel that the PNC can do better in 2025 if Norton is not there.

If there is ballot tampering and Norton remains, Africans will have two electoral choices –stay home or give substantial votes to Irfaan. They gave substantial votes to Trotman and they will give Irfaan those numbers in 2025 disregarding ethnic consciousness. Dr. Ali has made inroads into PNC constituencies which for obvious reasons anti-PPP organisations and politicians cannot recognise. Ali comes across as a modern day Cheddi Jagan to the African working class but more so to the nascent African petty bourgeoisie, the young African middle class and the small African peasantry.

Ali will continue to use state resources to reach out to the African world in Guyana right up to November 2025. What is wrong with that in terms of political pragmatism? It is inherent in political competition and there has been no exception to that in modern politics. In another column, I will look at how Ali can acquire some seats from non-PNC sources to make up the 10 he needs for a two-thirds victory.