THE PNC has a new central executive committee of 15. It took one week to count less than 1,500 votes. After the results were announced, some of the names synonymous with the PNC did not appear on the new executive.
In a small society like this where politicians are quite known for their energy, erudition and popularity, the contorted result can fool no one in this country.

When you look at the covert decapitation of some of the names that kept the PNC alive after 2020, then, the PNC is facing demise in 2025. The most popular beverage at the congress was Kool-Aid.
Let’s start with Jermaine Figueira. He is a Member of Parliament and one of the known faces in the PNC. He came in dead last with 527 votes, beaten badly by people this country has never heard of. I am an analyst whose job is to read about the activities of every high profile political activist in Guyana. Figueira was beaten by people that even PNC supporters never heard off.

Each one of the newcomers pulled in hundreds of votes more than Figuiera. It is not that they beat Figueira by 20 or 30 or even 50 votes. Figueira lost by hundreds of votes to his competitors except the man who brought second to last.
Where did the newcomers come from? After the 2020 election, PNC groups country-wide became dormant.

So, the question is, where these names were that beat Figueira? I am going to answer my own question – they did not beat Figueira just as Norton did not beat Amanza Walton-Desir and Roysdale Forde. The PNC Congress was fixed and in fixing it, the PNC drank the Kool-Aid and will be buried in the month of November 2025 assuming the general election is not called earlier.

Next is Annette Ferguson. If you ask anyone in Guyana to name women in the PNC, they will automatically say, Amna Ally and Annette Ferguson. Ferguson is one of the most known faces in the PNC, known for conduct that may be referred to as extremist. She was seen in a fracas in Parliament which in trying to secure the Mace she fell. That was all over the news. She is of course a Member of Parliament. She was also a former minister.

Why would someone so popular among PNC supporters, especially the women folks, unable to secure 700 votes when you look at those who pulled in that amount? Ferguson was doomed since she made a suicidal statement in October 2022, when in contesting the chairperson position for the Georgetown chapter of the PNC, she alluded to irregularities.

In the recent congress, she was the campaign manager for Roysdale Forde. Once Forde pulled out claiming suspicion and conspiracy, Ferguson’s fate was sealed. There is no way, the PNC could have a congressional election and Ferguson failed to win a seat on the executive. Ferguson was denied a seat. Those results were not legitimate. Based on what happened to her in October 2022, one would like to think, Ferguson had to know what was coming to her.

There is no need to put any analysis on the absence of Dr. Gary Best, Roysdale Forde and Amanza Walton-Desir. All three of them in a clean, free voting, would have garnered more votes than several of the unknown personalities that are now in the PNC hierarchy. Forde stands out as the legal face of the PNC. He has done all the high profile cases for the PNC from the no-confidence vote in 2018 to all the 2020 election legal battles that the PNC brought to the court. He said on the Freddie Kissoon Show that he did those matters for free.

What happens to the PNC now? That should be easy to predict once the Kool-Aid has been drunk and the Kool-Aid was swallowed. Norton says he will not be opposed to a consensus candidate and he named Carl Greenidge. But who in 2025 will want to tarnish their credibility by being the electoral front-man for the PNC under Norton and under the circumstances in which he was elected and the current central committee was elected.

There are two questions today and in the coming months that need to be answered. One is, will there be the birth of a new party by people like Forde, Best, Walton-Desir and others? The other is, what kind of electoral losses will the PNC endure after 2025? Corbin lost six seats in 2006. That will be an infinitesimal drop in the ocean compared to what is going to happen in 2025. The chant for the PPP in 2025 will be: “Go Irfaan, go, and get the 2/3rd.”

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.