PRESIDENT Dr Irfaan Ali started his second term over the weekend, after the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) confirmed what everyone already knew – the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) and their presidential candidate had won the September 1, 2025, General and Regional Elections.

The final GECOM declaration was delayed for two days by successive opposition parties’ complaints, including calls for recounts that only confirmed they’d lost, leaving the losers sounding and looking like sour grapes, and simply opposing for opposing sake.

GECOM responded to complaints, but A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), the biggest loser, refused to accept its loss, its leadership scraping for words to explain unilaterally erasing the results of the national democratic exercise and declaring the entire process unfree and unfair.

The fierce ongoing online warfare between opposing political propagandists also continued, influencers and permanent critics at home and abroad mostly debating why the APNU and the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) lost so-badly, and who is to be blamed.

The long knives are already out, with loud calls from within for PNCR Leader Aubrey Norton to resign.

But even though he has reluctantly raised a small white flag, the PNCR Leader continues to live in denial, absolutely insisting that something had to be wrong with GECOM’s results.

Now, APNU is talking about appealing GECOM’s declaration in the High Court after its two elections commissioners, and a third representing the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), refused to endorse the results, abstaining from voting with reasons even they found difficult to explain to the press.

The three opposition commissioners refused to vote, forcing the Commission’s Chair to cast her vote alongside the PPP/C’s three commissioners. They then accused her of favouring the ruling party.

Understandably, the PNCR won’t take kindly to the fact that their traditional bases of pillar-to-post support in their two citadel electoral regions (Regions 4 and 10) were reduced to rubble by a three-month-old bulldozing newcomer outfit led by an internet-savvy ‘Rich Kid’ with an actual golden touch.
The PNCR had hoped that Azruddin Mohamed and his hastily stitched We Invest in Nation (WIN) party would have infiltrated the PPP/C’s support base, but that turned out to be a deadly miscalculation, as WIN actually bit deeply into the heart of the PNCR’s national support.

As per tradition everywhere else, at elections time, ‘All politics is local!’

As such, there was no indication on Elections Day and after that any voter in Guyana cared or feared that U.S. troops were in waters off the coast of Guyana’s neighbour Venezuela.

The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) reported on September 1 that a boat transporting ballot boxes on a river in a shared border came under gunfire ‘from the Venezuela side’.

The GDF said the soldiers accompanying the GECOM boxes returned fire, but no one was hurt.
However, while the GDF statement did not mention, blame or accuse Venezuela, its Defence Minister responded like it had.

The three menacing U.S. warships and a nuclear submarine with 4,500 sailors and 2,200 marines deployed to the Venezuelan coast, had the neighbouring nation on very-high alert, while Guyanese went to polling stations to cast their ballots that day.

President Ali told the local media that Guyana will always be willing to support counter-narcotics measures in Latin America and the Caribbean but also insisted “the region must be respected as a Zone of Peace”.

But none of that seemed to matter to most Guyanese, who’ve lived with Venezuela’s claim all their lives, the majority born and sworn to the national pledge to give-up ‘Not a Blade of Grass!’ as clearly stated in the anthem-like song by The Tradewinds

Instead, they seemed more interested in how the parties they voted for were preparing for the next five years, with President Ali and the PPP/C at the helm of the ship of state.

As Commander-in-Chief of his nation’s armed forces, President Ali insists Guyana does not want to go to war and will do all it can to avoid one but at the same time will not allow itself to be attacked unprepared or unable to respond.

Guyana is not alone in this fight.

President Trump’s pursuit of Venezuela’s oil sees Caracas coming under intense pressure, even while Chevron – already there for over-a-century – is now also the second-biggest player in Essequibo’s Stabroek Block, having purchased Hess Corporation’s Guyana assets.

Chevron overcame Exxon Mobil’s sustained legal efforts to block its takeover of Hess in Guyana and it’s still uncertain whether the two U.S. oil giants will dance or fight over shared access to Essequibo’s subterranean energy resources.
China has warned the U.S. that Beijing’s interests will also be at stake if the Washington decides to take any military action against Venezuela in pursuit of regime change.

Undoubtedly the most popular person in Guyana today, President Ali’s administration managed the economic mess they inherited from the APNU in 2020 in an admirable manner in its first term, turning one of the region’s poorest nations into the world’s fastest-growing oil-based economy.

The PPP/C’s major second-term priorities are already spelt-out in its ‘Agenda 30’ manifesto, but it will also have to creatively manage Guyana’s way around the new politics that the 2025 elections results have yielded.

But none of that seemed to matter since the September 1 presidential ballot has not only given President Ali and the PPP/C a second term, but also a bigger parliamentary margin.

Never mind the understandable sucking of bunches of sour grapes by the sorest losers, Guyana’s parties and alliances campaigned, voters voted, and results were shared in real time.

Guyana has spoken and GECOM has confirmed that they have resolutely approved President Ali’s leadership for another five years, depositing their confidence in his proven ability to show that Guyana’s voters won’t waste their wonders.

Now for a second term of popular PPP/C governance…

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.