By Earl Bousquet

MOST Guyanese who voted in the nation’s historic presidential and parliamentary elections on Monday (September 1) will be jumping in joy today, while some weep, wail, moan and gnash their teeth when the final results are finally declared by the nation’s elections commission (GECOM).
The past two days witnessed a mix of tense suspense and high expectations, as Guyanese everywhere remained glued to the real-time publication of Statements of Poll by GECOM, their moods fluctuating between high and low, according to which party or alliance they voted for.

GECOM is ensuring adherence to legal and legislative requirements to ensure tabulation is verifiable, but the early trends from even the drip-drip declarations from the ten administrative regions seemed to confirm – early as Tuesday — that the ruling People’s Progressive Party-Civic (PPP/C) alliance will win a second term.
It was also clear by Tuesday night (September 2) that while the PPP/C was sure to win again, the major opposition APNU (A Partnership for National Unity) would get a serious run for its money from the new WIN (We Invest in Nationhood) party led by a young gold-plated political upstart.

By midday Wednesday, with over 90 per cent of the votes counted, the arithmetic of the Statements of Poll indicated, in clearly certain terms, that WIN had seriously dented APNU’s toughest armour, eating heavily into its base — and even likely to replace the alliance led by the People’s National Congress (PNC) as the leading parliamentary opposition party.
The trend was so clear that most analysts who’d accepted the results as a free and fair representation of the national democratic exercise concluded that the PPP/C will likely increase its parliamentary presence and the PNC would lose its historic role as one of the two major national parties with the most voter support.
Worse, the GECOM results also indicated APNU and the PNC had (unbelievably) lost Region 4 (including the capital city, Georgetown) and Region 10 (including Linden) – traditionally dominated electorally by the PNC, from its creation in 1964.

With the PPP/C set to win the national electoral contest yet-again, WIN winning more seats than expected (by both PPP/C and APNU and set to also lead the parliamentary opposition, APNU is left to lick its deep wounds.

But while emotions will be at fever-pitch in different ways today, speculation has moved from which party or alliance will win, to what the new parliamentary and political landscape will be after the new session of the National Assembly is called.

The results offer an unlimited series of unexpected possibilities, including everything from how the new PPP/C administration and the United States (US) will treat the fact that Mohammed is still under US sanctions (for not declaring an estimated US $50 Million worth of gold shipments from Guyana by his gold-trading family), to how the APNU will handle having been replaced as the leading opposition party (for the first time in its 61 years) either in government or leading the parliamentary opposition.
Analysts are asking:

•Will the PNC and APNU embrace WIN and work with new Opposition Leader Mohammed, or will it take a sour-grapes approach to being beaten almost every step of the race by a party established less than four months ago, that announced its name only on June 19, 2025?
•Will WIN be willing to work with the PNC in parliament?
•Will the US keep or lift the sanctions on Mohammed, now that he’s been elected to lead the opposition?
•Will the new second-term PPP/C administration maintain its distance from WIN (and its leader)?
•Will Team Mohammed’s win result in healing or deepening the wounds between the PPP/C and the Mohammed clan?
•Which party or alliance – if any – will the APNU and PNC be willing to enter a parliamentary alliance with?
•Will the nation’s two traditional parties treat the results as a message to embrace or further widen their long distances?
•What are the implications for and of the inevitable shake-up in opposition representation on GECOM?
•Will the PPP/C see and treat the decimation of the PNC and APNU by WIN as a welcome beginning of the end for its traditional opponent?
•And – will WIN be able to sustain the obvious largesse of its campaign for the next five years?
APNU Presidential candidate and PNC leader Aubrey Norton is most-likely under the most intense political pressure ever from within, disappointed supporters demanding explanations for why their party lost so-badly, why so-many crossovers to the PPP/C and why too many simply didn’t vote on Monday.
The results are also pregnant with implications for traditional ethnic and race relations, where the age-old racial divide (between PPP and PNC supporters) started to disappear as early as the 2023 mid-term national local government (municipal) elections.
Back then, many traditional PNC supporters joined and contested for the PPP/C and it was clear the government’s policies had influenced many opposition supporters to embrace the ruling alliance.

Similarly, in the campaign for Monday’s poll, it was also clear that opposition supporters were crossing the floor more-than-ever.
The PPP/C will naturally leave the speculation to the speculators – online and on the ground – while preparing to appoint its second-term administration to deliver on the promises in its 65-page 2025 elections manifesto entitled ‘Forward Together for a Better Guyana’ (also called ‘Agenda 2030’).
President Dr Irfaan Ali stressed throughout the campaign that, if returned to office, the PPP/C will widen and deepen its investments in all aspects of national development already experienced in his first term — from increasing benefits for families and pensioners, to interventions aimed at continuing to take Guyana from a land once bedeviled by poverty to one posting posterity as the world’s fastest-growing oil-based economy.

Meanwhile, Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member states will welcome the assurance of continuity of stability in the region’s largest nation and economy — and seat of the CARICOM Secretariat — and look forward to greater possibilities of more bilateral and multilateral cooperation with Guyana.

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.