I watch still photos and video clips of President Ali interfacing, interacting, engaging with and embracing dimensions of the Guyanese society that cut across gender, demography, and race, and I say to myself, this is somebody new and unique.

My admiration for Cheddi Jagan is enormous. I think he is the best the British West Indies has produced, but there is a West Indian political model and I think few of our CARICOM heads, past and present, have manifested that West Indian motif as President Ali of Guyana does.

I think there were CARICOM heads that moved easily among the people and they had that West Indian touch about them. Their presence invented the term “the West Indian politician.” CARICOM has seen a plethora of West Indian governmental heads, many of whom had more of the West Indian flair than our two stalwarts in Guyana – Burnham and Jagan.

Eric Gairy of Grenada stands out.  There was Edward Seaga in Jamaica. We had Ralph Gonsalves in St. Vincent. Currently in Barbados, there is Mia Mottley. But the man who brings the “West Indian politician” alive in this day and age is Ali of Guyana.

Irfaan Ali is a perfect example that humans cannot understand the inner substance of the individual. We once had two tomcats that were born in our yard. These two cats had absolutely nothing in common. They were two completely different creatures. One was aggressive and moody. The other was docile and introverted.

The point is that there are some ingrained characteristics of humans that set them apart from the flock. Irfaan Ali has a light personality that prevents the birth of stiffness and arrogance. That personality type allows humans to wade through all the sections, dimensions and strata of society with incredible ease. Such a personality type can hardly lose and almost never loses.

I have written it before and my position is that repetitions reinforce the point and when the point echoes, it sticks and people learn. Here is a repetition from previous columns – Irfaan Ali is the only electoral competitor since the first multi-party contest in 1957, after the removal of the Jagan/Burnham PPP Government by the Colonial Office in the early 1950s, who received a meaningful cross-racial vote in the 2025 election.

He will not be a contestant in 2030, but that legacy will live on. Can his successor emulate him? Ali’s successor is predictably Anil Nandlall. I mention that for two reasons. There is more oil money coming in, particularly from 2028, according to what I read the experts say. There will be a sufficiently large pie to share. It is stupid for any Guyanese to think that after 2028, there will not be rich people who will get richer from the oil economy.

There is no innovative policy by the government that can stop that. This is the natural way of economics in a capitalist system. The role of the state is to take the country’s wealth and ensure people who are low-income earners, who are at a comparative economic disadvantage and live with an unacceptable financial burden are given a comfortable life.

When a ruling party does that, the natural societal appreciation follows. I think it is inconceivable that the current ruling party could be so short-sighted that a vast improved oil economy will not be used to give Guyanese an inviting future. We have four years, six months before another election and given the map of electoral competition, the legacy that Irfaan will leave will favour a PPP victory. In 2030, the state of the opposition may see the PPP getting a two/third majority.

Whoever is leading the PPP into the election will be the next Guyana president. My analysis informs me it will be Anil Nandlall. Mr. Nandlall is one of three faces that are synonymous with the PPP. There is an unspoken, invisible PPP triumvirate – Ali, Jagdeo and Nandlall.  He is a brilliant lawyer, one of the best CARICOM has produced. He has long served the PPP. But most of all, I think Nandlall’s strategic intervention over the past five years has made the rule of the PPP possible.

We have four more years for the PPP to find a presidential candidate. It is going to be difficult for a genuinely ambitious person (nothing wrong with being ambitious) within the PPP leadership to have a greater claim than Nandlall. I am putting 58 years of experience on the line by saying I cannot see any circumstances in which another candidate can outbid Nandlall.

For me, the die is cast. My emotion centres on if Nandlall could do the West Indian politician thing the way Ali has successfully done it. I think Nandlall has the personality to secure an embrace from all walks of life, but could he be another Ali? I hope he can.

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.