HERE are the words of Christopher Ram about the attendance at the campaign launch of the APNU last Sunday: “It must trouble the PPP/C that for all its confidence from endorsements from recent members of the APNU/PNC, from several cash grants with promises of more to come, from the convenient attendance of tens of thousands of part-time workers at its events, and the demonising of David Hinds, that the PNC-R, or APNU could attract such a crowd.”

I replied to Ram (Wednesday, July 9, 2025, “Christopher Ram’s understanding of politics”) and noted that “Chris should never have used the word “huge”, because any schoolboy will tell you that when the PPP is ready to launch, you will have to find another word to describe that attendance.”

And it happened yesterday. The election campaign launch yesterday was manifestly larger than the APNU’s. This was a staggeringly large crowd, and my view of it ended at 16:00hrs, when I began this column. People were pouring in long after 16:00hrs. I do not have the numbers for the attendees after 16:00hrs, but from what I observed at 16:00hrs, those crowds constituted perhaps the largest numbers of an election campaign by a political party.

I would like to see Ram’s take on why the PPP attracted such a large gathering. Let us look at Ram’s logic and use it against him. He argues that after the PPP dished out cash grants and demonised David Hinds, the APNU was able to secure a huge presence of supporters.
One can use Ram’s own methodology against him. For five years now, Ram has demonised the ruling party. For five years now, the Stabroek News has demonised the ruling party with more intensity than Ram. For more than five years now, the Kaieteur News has become insanely obsessed with condemning the government.

For five years now, the PNC, AFC, Guyana Human Rights Association, Red Thread, Transparency International – Guyana Chapter, “In The Diaspora” by Dr. Alissa Trotz, the Guyana Press Association, David Hinds, Rickford Burke, Lincoln Lewis, Tacuma Ogunseye and several poisonous anti-PPP Online news outlets have insanely condemned the government, to the point where many of these actors named above appeared to have become simply irrational.

Ram needs to tell the Guyanese people that with the gigantic encirclement of the PPP since August 2020, how did it manage to attract such massive numbers. Now it is obligatory on the part of Ram to explain the size of the crowd the PPP got yesterday as he did with the PNC’s showing at the Square of the Revolution.

I don’t know what Ram will say about those numbers, but I can guess the perspective of the Stabroek News, based on the newspaper’s interpretation of the PPP’s victory in the 2023 local government election.

The newspaper suggested that the PPP bribed citizens to vote for it.

So, are we going to see an editorial later this week in which the Stabroek News is going to postulate the bribing of citizens for them to come out at the rally yesterday? I may not be Guyana’s most competent analyst, but I think I do a fairly plausible job. Remember me when you read that particular editorial on the massive showing at the PPP’s election launch.

The newspaper is going to posit two theories as to why the PPP’s Sunday rally got such colossal numbers. One is people were intimidated, thus coerced to attend, and secondly, the PPP bribed people. The newspaper did it before in 2023 when the PPP won the local government elections, and it is going to do it again.

Unfortunately, we are not going to get Ram’s explanation. I don’t think he has one. How does one explain this mammoth display of support by the PPP at the campaign launch yesterday? We need no elaborate analysis on this issue. Mohamed Irfaan Ali is tremendously appreciated in Guyana, and his administration has transformed Guyana in four-and-a-half years in ways in which Guyana in 2025 bears no resemblance to Guyana in 1995.

I believe the people of Guyana have seen the phenomenal transformation of this nation, and they see in President Ali a leader that is in a hurry to take Guyana so high that Guyanese can see eternity. You look at that rally and the ocean of multi-racial folks wearing red and waving red, and you know Ali is going to be reelected. I believe he will. Yesterday’s prodigious rally is testimony to this man’s ubiquitous popularity. Such popularity makes his continuation to 2030 a foregone conclusion.

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.