IF any year was a period of disappearing fortunes for the opposition parties, it was 2024. It was a self-destructive year that occurred just months away from a general election. The time period is severely disadvantageous to all the major opposition parties because there isn’t time to do damage control.

The consensus of opinion on the reasons Kamala Harris failed is that she was given too short a period by Mr Biden to stamp her brand on the election campaign. The self-inflicted damage to the opposition is deep and wide and in all probability, it will wipe off the possibility of election capital.

First the PNC. Its congress last year was a disaster. The haemorrhage began when Aubrey Norton went into autocratic mode. Then the denouncement was reached at the congress when huge names became alienated. Four of those names created a huge crater in the PNC’s anatomy: Amanza Walton-Desir, Roysdale Forde, Gary Best and Jermaine Figueira. Parties do not normally survive such a widespread exodus.

The lowest point in the election physiology of the PNC since it was born, was 2006 when Robert Corbin’s leadership was weakened on several fronts, particularly by Vincent Alexander and Aubrey Norton from within and by Raphael Trotman. In an eerie repetition of history, this is what is happening to Aubrey Norton. Corbin lost six parliamentary seats to Trotman, and Norton may lose the same amount to Nigel Hughes. I say “may” because both PNC and AFC may suffer from the “stay home” syndrome, thus greatly reducing their seats intake.

For those who think the AFC is an election non-starter, they were right until Norton went into self-destruction mode. If the PNC had not suffered internal bleeding and guerilla warfare and Norton had given way to a more inviting successor, then Hughes or no Hughes, the AFC would have still been in Le Repentir Cemetery.

What the AFC saw was an opportunity to resurrect itself, particularly after the PNC’s embarrassing congress. So, the AFC turned to Hughes but he, nor any other human on Planet Earth, could have saved the AFC if the PNC were a normal party. As it stands today, any seats the AFC will get will come from people who would have voted for the PNC.

However, there are some confusing configurations on the opposition landscape that the analyst has to deal with. One is that Nigel Hughes re-entered politics when his star power faded in 2020. Whether you like Hughes or not, he had multi-racial respect even after 2015 because he was not part of the AFC’s ministerial school and he also left the party and declared the end of his official political life.

But his political life took a new life under an Afro-centric cloak. Hughes operated on a terrain that had wild, extremist Africanised personalities that Guyana could and should do without. Hughes was now in the company of people like Rickford Burke, who pays no attention to logic, political decency and rationality.

Before that, Hughes had dissolved all by himself his multi-racial image by his bizarre support for the contortions the PNC and AFC invented to reject the no-confidence motion and his tsunamic silence in an attempt to rig a national election to give permanent power to the PNC and AFC.

By that time, Hughes had figured out that he could be a major political player at the national level, seeing that Norton had committed political suicide. It was too late. The star had faded beyond recognition and Hughes willingly accepted membership of a club that appeared racist to the Indian people of this country.

I am not the greatest political analyst, but I believe I do compose plausible analyses of political trends in Guyana, and from where I stand, Nigel Hughes cannot resurrect the AFC or even his pre-2015 standing in Guyana. Will he get seats? Yes, but I don’t want to say how many; that is a real guessing game. However, I do believe the political architecture in 2025 provides the PPP with a prodigious advantage. I think the style and personality of Irfaan Ali will generate a PPP victory over and above what the PPP presently has in Parliament.

Finally, I do not believe any third party that currently exists or that will be born soon will have even an infinitesimal impact. ANUG had some setbacks last month and it is a literal joke to think that people will vote for Glenn Lall. We have been down that road before and even a boy scout can tell you how Lall will end up. 2024 has been a nightmare for all opposition parties. The elections are upon us; it is too late for all of them.

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.