I WOULD like to think around midnight (Tuesday morning), the contesting parties and the international observers would know the results of the 2025 general and regional elections. The public would know later Tuesday.
My prediction is that the main opposition party, the PNC or PNC-R or APNU will lose many seats. Of those losses, the majority gains will be to the PPP. Crazily, incredibly and horribly, I think WIN may pick up two or three seats at the expense of the PNC.
Over the past two years on this page, I have offered several reasons spread over dozens of columns why the PNC will lose the 2025 contest. Today, I will offer a holistic picture of why at midnight on January 2, the PNC will not win state power.
A caveat is in order. Because of the ground to cover in this analysis, I will have to be extremely brief because of space constraint. Firstly, I begin with the 2020 election results because I think the PNC’s and AFC’s downward slide began in that year.
It was a five-month, terrifying nightmare. The psychic damage done to the Guyanese people would not have been extensive if the conspiracy was a two-day affair or even lasted for a week. But five months shattered the national psyche. The best strategy for the PNC and AFC after 2020 was to forget about the disaster, don’t ever mention it and concentrate as early as 2021 on the 2025 poll.
But the PNC and AFC did not do that and did not see that continuation of claims that the PPP was installed would alienate voters from them. Quickly, three examples showed where the seeds of the midnight defeat tomorrow (Tuesday) were sown.
One- present PNC candidate, Ubraj Narine knows everything about what is wrong in Guyana and the government. But when you ask him about the attempted rigging in 2020, he barefacedly says he knows nothing about that.
Two- PNC campaigner, Henry Jeffrey continues to say that the PPP thoroughly rigged the 2020 election.
Three – Nigel Hughes said on attaining the leader position of the AFC that he does not know about election rigging in 2020.
Secondly, the style of Aubrey Norton’s leadership severely damaged the image, credibility and biology of the PNC. The three previous PNC leaders – Burnham, Hoyte and Corbin – were strong believers in consensus building strategies particular in relation to class and race.
Norton tragically frowned on those priceless strategies and dismissed the importance of seeking alliance with PNC stalwarts from the former APNU government between 2015 and 2020. Norton showed no interest in building an alliance with any section of Guyanese society because he was too autocratic and egoistic.
What happened then was important figures began to leave, with the highest profile being Forbes Burnham’s son-in-law, Van-West Charles.
Thirdly, when Norton inherited the PNC leader position, there were prominent Indian faces that simply had to be elevated and treated with respect. But Norton got influenced by Afro-racial themes of people like David Hinds, Nigel Hughes, Rickford Burke, Tacuma Ogunseye and Mark Benschop.
The result was a huge exodus of Indians. Ubraj Narine who is a PNC candidate admitted on the Freddie Kissoon Show that he opened talks with Azruddin Mohamed, but only backed down because he was afraid of the implications of the US sanctions.
Fourthly, The PNC threw away a huge political goldmine by first, using the Adrianna Younge tragedy in racial ways. The nation showed sympathy for the family of the child and this was across race and class.
But the PNC with Amanza Walton-Desir in front, made the thing into a political circus in which the President was demonised. A huge section of society rejected this political opportunism.
Added to this was the demagoguery of Norton, Hughes, Hinds and Terrence Campbell in their attitude to the widespread violence that occurred on April 28 after the findings of the Younge post-mortem.
Hinds endorsed the violent youths. Hughes, Campbell, and Norton referred to the mobs as PPP agent provocateurs. Even Rajendra Bissessar who hates the PPP more than every opposition leader, told me the April 28 violence scared Indians once more.
Fifthly, as the months to the September 1 election drew closer, the Guyanese people showed disgust with the school of opposition parties. They each showed an interest in political real estate rather than a total anti-PPP bandwagon.
They each demonstrated to the nation that ego, personality and obsession with office were their driving factors for opposing the government and the nation saw through them. Come midnight tonight or the beginning of Tuesday morning, the opposition would have suffered a self-imposed defeat.

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.