ONCE Mr. Norton loses, the knives will be out for him. What Norton will do after the election is to try to instigate street protest, which he hopes will create an atmosphere inside the PNC that leads to the sermon of “this is not the time for division” so as to deter a leadership challenge. Street protest will not emerge for a number of reasons, the first being the nature of the election itself.

I think both Norton and Nigel Hughes are using the so-called bloated list and bio-metric request to denounce the election results because they know the result is a foregone conclusion. The 2025 election is going to be so transparent that it will be impossible to procure evidence of rigging. Where is the evidence going to come from?

Secondly, I don’t think third parties are going to endorse the conspiracy claim of the PNC and AFC. After the election is over, given its smooth operation, whether small parties win seats or hardly get votes, they are not going to embrace the stratagem of the PNC and AFC.
Secondly, there will be no street violence after 2025, no matter who in the opposition advocates it. Slo fyaah/mo fyaah was born in particular circumstances that cannot be replicated in 2025. Slo fyaah/mo fyaah began in 1997, when political fever and economic factors allowed the flames to be fanned. That era has passed.

In terms of political fever, Desmond Hoyte still had factors in his favour. He used the ethnicity of Mrs. Janet Jagan to generate hate in certain constituencies who saw it as eyepass that a White woman is in charge of “their country. I doubt in the absence of Mrs. Jagan’s presidency, the flames of slo fyaah/ mo fyaah could have so spread so rapidly.

Then there was the important factor of Hoyte himself. He had only recently lost power (1992) and therefore still commanded political support from entrenched constituencies. When Hoyte spoke, sections of the African population listened because, after all, he was President Hoyte.
Another political factor to consider was the newness of the PPP. It had just come into power (1992) thus by 1997 did not have enough time to present itself to the African population. This newness was exploited by the PNC who urged their supporters to stick with the PNC because the PPP was an Indian party.

In terms of the economy, in 1997 Guyana was still a poor country with an ocean of unemployed youths who came from depressed areas of Georgetown and readily answered the call to burn. But it must be remembered at all times that it was impossible and remained impossible to determine whether the youths who were burning stores in slo/fyah/mo fyaah were politically driven or just people looking to exploit the political drama to loot and fill their pockets. The bulk of the destruction in 1997 was caused by the lumpen proletariat and not the labouring masses.
1997 went by a long time ago and the political fever and economic ambience that nurtured slo fyaah/mo fyaah are gone. First, there still may be a lumpen proletariat in Guyana, but for a majority in that class, they have moved on. They do not have time for newspapers, television and political demagoguery. They do not know who Tacuma Ogunseye is and don’t care to know who he is.

Their time is spent on social media and la dolce vita. There are literally dozens of hang-out spots in Berbice, Demerara and the West Coast where young people in their thousands just immerse themselves in la dolce vita. These young people do not ride bicycles and go home to empty kitchens.  The oil economy has almost eradicated the lumpen proletariat. Employment in Guyana is exceedingly high.

The role of political fever is gone in Guyana. Young people do not listen to traditional political activists. They are moved by social media influencers. This analysis here will not deny that there is poverty in Guyana, there are unemployed youths, there are people who want more money in their pockets.
But these factors, in 2025, will not create a situation where people believe the election was controlled by the PPP, the PNC was cheated and they will create mayhem. The largest indication of that was in 2020 in Georgetown, where people were not interested in the PNC’s sermons of PPP electoral mischief.

And in September in 2020, with the Cotton Tree double homicide, Agricola and Buxton were not moved by the inciting propaganda they heard by elements in the PNC. Space has run out but my fundamental point is that African people in Guyana in 2025 will not respond to the PNC and AFC for the resuscitation of my fyaah/slo fyaah.
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.