I HAVE argued since 2020 after the elections disaster finally came in August of that year, that the PNCR was playing a psychological game with its supporters that will lead to electoral destruction of the party. It happened in 2025.

There was a low turn out in many traditional PNCR areas and different analysts will offer different perspectives as to why this happened. There is of course no single explanation for the abstentions on September 1, 2025, but one explanation that no one has offered so far is that psychological game.

What was his game about? From the time President Ali was sworn in on August 2020, right up to the next elections in 2025, the PNCR, their surrogates and the AFC have blamed the PPP/C for rigging the elections thus giving themselves power.  The mantra of Henry Jeffrey became the PNCR’s anthem. Jeffrey exclaimed that in nine out of the 10 regions, the elections were extensively rigged by the PPP/C. For some esoteric reason, Jeffrey made no mention of Region Eight.

Jeffrey said in some regions such as Regions Two, Three and Six, the fraudulent operations were way beyond 50 per cent. The inbuilt asininity in the PNCR’s adoption of Jeffrey’s fiction even a 10 year old could have detected. I have written on this asininity extensively and although Guyana has moved far away from the insanity of the 2020 elections disaster, I am revisiting it once more for two reasons.

One is that the psychological farce thrust upon PNCR supporters in 2020 came back to haunt the party in 2025, and I will clarify that below when I describe Jeffrey’s asininity. The other reason is that the PNCR has learnt nothing from the failure of their 2020 psychological charade. They are still singing this worn-out anthem that will see a continuing devastation in 2030, at which time the PNCR may not even get a seat.

Once more, I will describe the comicality in the story of the PPP/C rigging the 2020 polls. I asked then and I am asking now, how was this PPP/C machinery able to completely manipulate the elections operations when it was not the incumbent but the opposition? There is no case study in modern politics where an opposition hijacked an election. In 100 per cent of the time, it is the incumbent that perpetuates the fraud.

Since 2020, the PNCR and its prophet Henry Jeffrey have not offered the PNCR supporters even a modicum of explanation as to how the PPP/C controlled the 2020 elections procedures when the incumbent had the following:

1-David Granger, the President, who was also the former head of the army

2-Joseph Harmon, Minister of State in the Ministry of the Presidency, who was also the former chief of military intelligence

3-Winston Felix, Minister of Citizenship, who was the former Commissioner of Police

4-Edward Collins, Presidential Adviser, who was a former head of the army

5-Mark Archer, head of presidential communication and a retired army officer

The commonsensical question that will always be asked is given the military ramparts that were in the PNCR government during the 2020 polls, what were they doing when the PPP/C had taken over the electoral operation in 2020? The commonsensical answer is that no opposition in history or in the current world could have taken over and rigged a general election as an opposition party.

So, we come now to a theory for the low turn out in PNCR strongholds in 2025. Here, more commonsense is at work. Is it not possible that if you tell your supporters that the PPP/C is invincible and could do whatever it wants in Guyana, then as a logical and commonsensical question they will ask – why are we going to vote in 2025 when it is a foregone conclusion?

A simple analogy from cricket should suffice. The Boxing Day Test in Australia normally carries a huge attendance. People will not go to see it if Australia’s opponent is Nepal. The logical reasoning is that the results will be known before even a ball is bowled, so why go when you know what will happen?

Now, Aubrey Norton and Amanza Walton-Desir who played the psychological game with PNCR supporters in 2020 are on the same self-destructive path.

Norton told his interviewer that when it comes to rigging the PPP/C is unscrupulous and the 2025 poll was tampered with by the PPP.

Let’s quote Walton-Desir:     “What the PPP is doing — and I’ve said this for five years now — is that they’re deliberately engineering the population to make Guyanese votes irrelevant. They can do whatever they want, and then elections happen, and because they have engineered the system — with the capture of GECOM — they can do as they like.” 

This is fatalism coming from Walton-Desir. When you tell your supporters the PPP/C is all powerful Leviathan then, why ask Guyanese to vote for you. They will not because you tell them you cannot win.

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.