THERE is talk about a consensus candidate among opposition parties for the upcoming general and regional poll scheduled for November 2025.
One of the opposition parties that will not participate in a consensus candidate confabulation is ANUG. Its current General-Secretary, Timothy Jonas, told me that his party does not want such a coalition attachment with the PNC and AFC.
I am using the term, “coalition attachment” in the essentialist sense meaning that once an opposition party agrees to a consensus figure then it has a definite arrangement with other parties. From Mr. Jonas’ reaction, it appears that ANUG will want to keep its distance from the PNC and AFC.
It appears likely that this will be the sentiment of other parties that exist at the moment or others that will be born in 2025 to contest the election. As I wrote in my piece last Wednesday; whatever credibility problem the PNC and AFC have will widen after June 2024 because I believe their congressional elections will not pass the legitimacy test.

Roysdale Forde painted an extremely gloomy picture of the current shape of the congress. Speaking to me on the Freddie Kissoon Show, there is the distinct impression anyone listening to or watching him will get – the congressional election of the PNC, unless there is some last minute crucial intervention to bring about transparency, will not be free and fair
Over at AFC, an identical monstrosity exists. The large amount of nominations Sherod Duncan got over David Patterson is hard to believe. How interesting? Norton is director of the congress and pulled in ten times more nominations than his rivals. Duncan as General-Secretary is contesting the leadership and secured far more nominations than Patterson. Patterson has since stepped down in favour of Nigel Hughes. But he is contesting the chairmanship position.
If there is a consensus candidate among opposition parties in 2015, he/she will have to come from an agreement between the AFC and APNU only. I say only because no other opposition grouping will want to touch the PNC or AFC.
What we will likely have then in 2025 is dead meat and also a discredited PNC. That is a recipe for defeat. The AFC is dead meat. It has long gone. There were two episodes of third party glory. The early sixties when the Portuguese capitalist class saw the opening for a mainstream third party, the United Force (UF) that would appear differently in the eyes of the nation from the two mass giants – PPP and PNC.
The UF went into government with the PNC and its existence was eradicated. The other episode was the post Buxton period after 2005. The dialectics paved the way for third party with the formation of the Alliance For Change (AFC). But there was a very crucial difference in the ontology of UF and the AFC that made the AFC more successful.

The UF was a distinct formation born out of class and ethnic determinants. The UF had no overlapping relations with the PPP and PNC at birth time. The UF was born with an agenda to make capitalism the overriding system in Guyana and to preserve the strong presence of the Portuguese community.
The ambience that led to the birth of the AFC had nothing in common with the circumstances that caused the UF to come into existence. The AFC was an amalgamation of different class forces and different ethnic communities that were derived out of frustration with the two political giants.
Unlike the UF of the sixties, the AFC went beyond the ideology of ethnic protection and capitalist dominance. Its main concern was the creation of a new political culture and an all-embracing social system in which a new type of Guyana will be born. It was this symbolism that galvanised people to the AFC that brought electoral success.

The AFC died in a self-destructive environment that the AFC created. This was completely different from the circumstances that led to the demise of the UF. In government, the UF was in confrontation with the PNC from day one of the assumption to office in 1964. For a plausible description of this confrontation see the book, “To Survive Sensibly or Court Heroic Death: Management of Guyana’s Political Economy, 1965-1985” by Tyron Ferguson.
On acquiring power in 2015, the AFC was a completely different animal from what the aggressive UF was. It subsumed itself under the PNC and abandoned not one or two or three but every conceivable guiding principles that made it successful. For more on this confession see interview with Dominic Gaskin on the Freddie Kissoon Show. The AFC is dead meat and in 2025 will beg the PNC to accept it, so it can survive. But post-mortem cannot bring back the dead.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.