VICE-PRESIDENT Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo offered his opinion on the WIN’s collection of 16 seats. He said that there were people who did not want to vote for the PPP/C but gave their ballot instead to WIN rather than the PNCR/APNU. What the analyst has to do is offer an interpretation as to why African Guyanese stayed home or give their votes to WIN.

Search as much as you will, there is one colossal reason for the APNU’s devastation in 2025. The party slipped from 23 seats in 2020 (eight seats were from AFC) to 12. But actually, it is 31 seats in 2020 because in 2020, the AFC on its own could not have brought in even one seat as we just saw in the 2025 polls.

Here is that gargantuan reason. The young African population looked at Aubrey Norton, David Hinds, Tacuma Ogunseye, Mark Benschop and Rickford Burke, the PNCR and the AFC and simply said, they do not speak for us, we do not want them to represent us. It is as simple as that. And Mr. Jagdeo was dead right. They did not want to vote for the PPP/C, so they either stayed home or went over to WIN.

The current leadership of the APNU simply cannot get it as to why they lost so they are making the same mistake since their decapitation on September 1. They are giving off voices and penning words that are identical to the deportment they demonstrated before September 1.

I saw an interview with Aubrey Norton and his ignorance knows no limit. This will be examined in part 2 but for part 1 we look at David Hinds. When African Guyanese look at Hinds they must (not should) reject him as representing the African race. Let’s look at the unprecedented ignorance of Hinds.

First, he argues that Africans did not vote against their race because WIN is an African party with an Indian head. When you examine WIN’s composition then you know that people like Hinds will not stop in their insults to the Afro-Guyanese. So, he deceives African people by telling them that Africans have ditched their traditional African party, the PNCR/APNU but they switched over to another African party – WIN. So, Africans still showed ethnic solidarity on September 1.

Hinds is looking ignorant in the eyes of people. WIN is not an African party. If it was, then how come it has an Indian leader? Of course, nothing is wrong with an African party having an Indian head. But this is not the reality with WIN. This African party was solely funded by an Indian man whose sister was his campaign manager, and this African party named its PM candidate hours before elections started.

This African party has an Indian head, but no one knows which African is the deputy leader and how many Africans are in the leadership because there is no leadership structure. But let’s highlight the larger role ignorance plays in the political sermons of Hinds. If Africans accept an Indian man as their leader, why can’t the Indian head of the PPP/C accept and embrace Africans in the PPP/C leadership and offer them genuine authority?

So, the question to Hinds is, are there Africans in the PPP/C that have been accepted as part of the PPP/C’s hierarchy? If he says yes, then he has to apologise to James Bond and Leonard Craig for using scatological grammar to describe their personality because they went over to the PPP/C. If he says no, then by his logic only African folks can reach out to an Indian man to lead them but Indians are incapable of having Africans in their party.

Let’s look at more ignorance from Hinds. Secondly, he refuses to answer if Ganesh Mahipaul betrayed his race by becoming part of an African party. But he accuses Bond and Craig of betraying their race by joining the PPP/C. On refusing to answer if Mahipaul betrayed his race, he told his interviewer, she must ask the Indian people that question.

But did he ask the African people in Guyana if Bond and Craig betrayed their race when he labelled them as people who kiss ass? Hinds would say he didn’t have to ask them because he is African. So, he speaks for Africans? If he does, then African rejected him because APNU was reduced from 31 seats to 12 and in Buxton, Hinds’ constituency both the PPP/C and WIN collected sizeable votes.

Finally, Hinds spent an hour accusing the PPP/C of rigging the 2025 elections and oxymoronically spent the same hour exclaiming that the PPP/C did poorly in the elections with billions spent and with Jagdeo as campaign manager and that that poor showing should cause Jagdeo to resign. Have you ever seen more ignorance than this?

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.