WHEN Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh rose to wrap up the 2026 Budget debate on February 6, he did not merely close a parliamentary exercise, he presided over the political funeral of an opposition so fractured, so feeble, and so bereft of ideas that the Guyanese people must now wonder whether these 29 persons serve any purpose at all.
Let us begin with Terrence Campbell, the man catapulted into the parliamentary leadership of APNU — the smallest PNC contingent in the entire history of Guyana’s post-independence parliament. 12 seats. Not 22, not 33, not 54 as in the rigged Burnham era — 12. And what did the man entrusted with this diminished rump deliver during his allotted 20 minutes?
Vile personal attacks, body-shaming insinuations disguised as policy critique, and the audacity to brand every private-sector body in Guyana — from the PSC to the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce — as “politically captured.”
When your political strategy consists of insulting the very stakeholders who validated a $1.558 trillion people-centred budget, you deserve the political wilderness you inhabit.
Singh’s surgical dissection of Campbell was devastating. The Finance Minister exposed a man who could not even confirm when — or whether — he became a PNC member, who was secretive about his party affiliation, and who plagiarised Shirley Chisholm’s famous “Unbought and Unbossed” slogan, while accusing others of thievery.
He further revealed Campbell’s attempt to secure a write-off of tax penalties and interest — only for Campbell to rise, confirm the very charge, and sit down to uproarious laughter.
Even a senior PNC member described Campbell as a political “T-baller” — a child playing a child’s game on a grown-up field. The night watchman, as the cricketing analogy goes, holding the crease until someone serious arrives.
Then there is the spectre hovering over the entire opposition landscape: U.S.-indicted Azruddin Mohamed, whose WIN party holds 16 seats, yet whose leader faces federal charges for wire fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy to defraud the Guyana government of over US$50 million in gold-export taxes.
Singh’s extended “Pablo” analogy was no accident — it was a chilling reminder that tens of thousands of Guyanese abandoned the PNC not for a credible alternative, but for a party led by a man whom OFAC has sanctioned and the U.S.
Department of Justice has indicted.
That a shadow minister from WIN openly stated, “even when they carry him, the money will still be there,” tells you everything about the moral bankruptcy pervading those benches.
The opposition could not even agree among themselves on who would speak and for how long. APNU and WIN spent weeks locked in a petty squabble over shadow-cabinet allocations, with Campbell unable to extract meaningful portfolio representation from a party barely a year old.
The result? APNU MPs were reduced to 15-minute backbencher slots — the parliamentary equivalent of being told to sit down and be quiet.
Against this carnival of incompetence, the PPP/C presented towering parliamentary performances — from veterans such as Gail Teixeira to newcomers such as James Bond, Tandika McAllister, and the inspiring young indigenous MPs Sarah Browne and Sonia Latchman. The contrast was not subtle; it was annihilating.
The people of Guyana spoke clearly in September 2025 when they handed the PPP/C its largest majority in two decades and consigned the PNC to historic irrelevance.
Budget 2026, with its social safety nets, its provisions for infrastructural advancement, investments in human capital development, and significant cost-of-living measures, speaks for itself.
The opposition had five days to present a credible counter-vision. They squandered every minute. They were not merely defeated in debate. They were decimated by their own mediocrity.
