I RECENTLY saw an interview with Tabitha Sarabo-Halley of the WIN party and a press release by Nigel Hughes.
Let’s deal with Halley first. When you analyse that event, it was dull journalism meeting dumb politics. The journalist abandoned her obligation to history (assuming she knows what history is) and to journalistic competence.

The London Guardian interviewed me on Monday for my analysis of elections 2025. It was clear to me that the journalist did whatever any competent journalist would do – research your guest. The journalist told me she had been reading when she came here to cover the 2015 elections.
The Halley interview was a huge moment for understanding the cultural sociology and the political sociology of Guyana, but was sadly missed, thus Guyana’s historiography is poorer because of what did not come out of that interview.

The importance of what Ms Halley says about politics lies in understanding the dialectical changes in Guyana, since the race problem has been under focus long before Guyana became independent.

So, who is Ms Halley? She is the step daughter of David Hinds and was selected by the WPA as the party’s parliamentarian under the APNU umbrella. Ms Halley represented APNU for five years in parliament.

In no part of the dialogue, did the interviewer have the commonsense to pursue the subject of racial crossover of Ms Halley and the importance it has for a changing Guyana. Neither did Ms Halley have the commonsense to inform the Guyanese people that she chose issues over race and how such thinking should impact the present generation.
What needed to come out of that interview given the race problem that has dominated intellectual polemics in Guyana long before independence, was the political versus the racial choice in her decision.

Ms Halley offered the most jejune and soporific explanation as to why she chose WIN over APNU and WPA, avoiding the seminal importance of the disappearing presence of the race factor in political choices.

Since Ms Halley’s decision to be on the WIN slate, it has taken the wind out of the sail of Hinds. Since 2020, Hinds has been preaching the exigency of racial togetherness among Africans in Guyana.

Ms Halley went over to a party of an Indian Muslim man in preference to an entity headed by an African, and there are four parties in the 2025 election headed by Africans. After Halley’s entry to WIN together with some high-level Africans once associated with the PNC, David Hinds has become disoriented. One wonders if Hinds can survive mentally.
We come now to Nigel Hughes. I did a column for Wednesday, April 2, 2024, titled “Tennessee Williams takes over the AFC.”

In that analysis, I wrote the following: “No educated, experienced analyst of Guyanese politics can retain his/her credibility if he/she cannot see the Tennessee Williams factor in the collective mind of the AFC and that this jaded, faded superstar is living in the past, where the detachment from reality is sad, tragic and pathetic.”
That quote above is bitingly relevant when you read a press release put out by Nigel. I chose deliberately to say Nigel rather than the AFC because what we currently have on the elections terrain is a one-man show in the AFC’s campaign and a one-man show in WIN’s bandwagon.

Every campaign video of the AFC captures Nigel’s image only as if he is the AFC and the AFC is him. Every campaign video portrays Azruddin Mohamed only as if he is WIN and WIN is him.
But let’s return to Tennessee Williams and Nigel. Here is a quote from a press release issued last Monday by Nigel: “I speak to you today not as a politician, but as a fellow Guyanese who believes we deserve better. The AFC’s manifesto is about a vision of fairness and dignity. It is about ensuring that every Guyanese – regardless of race, religion and background — shares in the wealth of this nation. Guyana is rich beyond measure. What is missing is leadership that puts the people first.”

Whoever composed that press statement with the words quoted above is an incompetent strategist and a dumb person.
I gave the AFC some free campaign advice about six weeks ago. I suggested that it should not use words like the ones quoted above because it reminds the nation of how great the AFC once was and it were words like those that propelled the AFC into power.

50Then the AFC became monstrous and horrible people which the Guyanese nation should reject now and into the future. I feel sorry for Nigel. Did he ever read Tennessee Williams? I’m sure he did, but Nigel simply wants to live in the past.

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.