AS people are becoming more globalised and connected, we find that certain views of government are also becoming global.
In certain strains of social intersectional studies, global viewpoints are thought of as a factor shaping social dispositions that impact national choices. Choice of electoral candidates and political parties are also subject to this social phenomenon.
Election after election being held across the world over the last five years, show that voters are increasingly signalling that they wish to coexist in a plural and democratic space.
We need not look any further than US elections since 2020. The Republican party in the era of Trump has increasingly embraced policies that are undemocratic and loaded with bigoted religious and ethnic views.
Most of the Trumpian MAGA candidates have lost “bigly” at all levels of government. When all political pundits were predicting a red wave; a republican takeover, or, the flipping of many seats held by the Democrats in the House and Senate, the red wave never came. Instead, the Republicans lost seats in both chambers.

The majority of American voters are signalling to their politicians that they prefer to live in a country that respects the tenets of constitutional democracy and in peaceful ethnic and religious synchronicity.
We can then skip over to India where a general election was just concluded. The rockstar-ish, towering political personality Narendra Modi, lost his majority in the Lok Sabha, India’s parliament, which needs 272 seats for its majority.
Modi’s BJP is down from 303 seats to 240. This represents a loss of 63 seats, requiring Modi to form a coalition in order to govern. Over his last term, Modi went in increasingly undemocratic directions, including press censorship, jailing of political opponents and open anti-Muslim lingo.
In fact, Modi and other Hindu hardliners in the BJP leadership are often referred to as the Bulldozer Baba, attributable to his policies that led to the bulldozing of entire Muslim settlements and places of worship and replacing them with Hindu establishments.
Previously, Modi was shy in admitting that his Indian Nationalists’ outlook and political rhetoric led to discrimination against Muslims. However, during the 2024 election campaign, Modi seemed to have lifted all stops and openly made several speeches and ran political ads that openly referred to Muslims as “infiltrators.”

Modi is credited for lifting millions of Indian citizens out of poverty and is often praised for his sound economic policies and strategic international partnerships, along with growing geopolitical respect for India.
Despite these massive achievements credited to Modi, he has lost popularity and electoral returns at the ballot box. Modi’s biggest loss took place in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, which are fundamentalist Hindu dominant states.
Why? The very voters the discriminatory policies were intended to ‘protect and promote’ are loud in the chants, not in our name. They prefer ethnic and religious justice alongside democratic values.
I believe Guyana is no different. The party that demonstrates the greatest proclivity to equality, justice and democracy will make the greatest gains at the 2025 polls. At this juncture, I believe the Dr. Irfaan Ali led PPP/C is best positioned, given its message and outlook, to reach across Guyana’s ethnic divide and claim greater returns at the ballot box.

Further, given the post-2020 electoral demeanour of the main opposition and the display of undemocratic instincts at their internal party elections, have created the political aberration and threshing floor for loss of electoral support.
I have often lamented the one-horse pony the opposition rides, with shouts of racism, ethnic boycott and nothing else. Citizens are increasingly wearisome to voters who are seeking conciliation and creative solutions for peaceful coexistence.
The political opposition of Guyana continues to frame their activism around African discrimination to maintain their Afro-dominated support base via fearmongering. Like the voters of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, African voters in Guyana will reject any policy or political rhetoric built on prejudice, even if it is intended to “defend” them. 2025 beckons, the message in Guyana is clear, not in our name!

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.