Dear Editor,
THE recent election results have opened a new chapter in Guyana’s democratic journey. The PPP/C has not only secured victory in eight out of 10 regions, but it has also achieved what many thought improbable — winning Region Four, long considered an APNU stronghold.

The WIN party, led by Azruddin Mohamed, has meanwhile surged to become the second political force in the Parliament, pushing APNU into third place.
This political realignment is more than a numbers game. It speaks to the deeper question of civic identity and a gap between material progress and lived experience.
The historian E.P. Thompson, in The Making of the English Working Class (1963), distinguished between a “rising standard of living” and the actual experience of ordinary people.
Governments may improve infrastructure, expand housing, and raise incomes, as the PPP/C has demonstrably done, but if citizens’ experience of community, fairness, and belonging does not keep pace, discontent inevitably follows.

APNU and its affiliates have seized upon this gap, claiming that despite economic gains, their supporters feel more marginalised and excluded.
Their disbelief at the scale of electoral defeat, particularly the loss of Region Four, reflects not only political disappointment, but also deeper feelings of exclusion.
This trauma is compounded by ethnic narratives: APNU has long drawn its base from Afro-Guyanese constituencies, while both the PPP and now the WIN party are led by Indo-Guyanese figures.

For some, this reinforces the perception of being politically sidelined, even when the democratic process has been fair and competitive.
It is in this space, between rising standards of living and uneven experiences of belonging, that civic identity becomes critical. When people feel that their lives are improving but that their dignity, recognition, or participation are not equally advancing, cynicism flourishes.

Worse still, it can open the door to call for recounts, protests, and even violent agitation, as some APNU affiliates at home and abroad have threatened.
But civic identity offers a way forward. A democracy cannot endure on economic development alone; it must also give its citizens space to experience themselves as valued participants in a shared national project.

This is not about partisanship, it is about creating a framework in which citizens across divides feel their voices matter and their futures are intertwined.
The elections have made one fact clear: Guyana’s electorate is fluid, thoughtful, and capable of surprising shifts.
Former APNU supporters migrated in large numbers to WIN, indicating that ethnic allegiance is not immovable. That itself is a hopeful sign for civic transformation. If political leaders and institutions can nurture it, there’s everything to gain.
This moment, then, is not only about counting ballots, but also about reckoning with the lived experiences behind them. Thompson’s insight reminds us that standards of living are not enough. What matters just as much is how people experience citizenship, belonging, and recognition.
That is the terrain on which Guyana’s next democratic advances must be built.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Walter H Persaud