I WOULD not announce the election results because I don’t know them, but even if I did, I would not state it publicly out of respect for GECOM. What I have been doing is what any political analyst must do –monitor the Statements of Poll.

The trend shows the PPP in front and WIN is leading the PNC. It does not look as if the PNC will overtake WIN. That eventuality calls for complex analysis. That possibility cannot be explained by simple analysis. Beginning from today, I will offer the factors that had led to the poor showing so far (don’t forget, so far; there are no official election results).

All the opposition parties, certain civil society groupings, the Stabroek News and people like Christopher Ram have so hated the PPP that a crucial line that should never be crossed was crossed – equating the ruling party with the country. These people in their insane pursuit of the PPP blurred the line between country and party.

The PNC walked out of Parliament in a debate on Venezuelan aggression against our country. The AFC issued a statement on Venezuela that played into the hands of Maduro. The reason for this unforgivable behaviour is because anti-government actors are so obsessed with anti-government hate that they cannot see that political parties will come and go but Guyana must be protected.

In relation to WIN, all the opposition parties, the Stabroek News (SN), the Kaieteur News and Christopher Ram began to encourage him. They totally obscured the fact that this man has a past and a present controversial status that should prevent him from being accepted in political society.
The PNC had more to lose than the SN and Ram in giving political space to Azruddin Mohamed for a commonsensical reason – the PNC is an electoral party that has to get votes to become the government. All the opposition parties, every one of them, began to cultivate Mohamed.

The turning point was March this year when the AFC and the PNC with Amanza Walton-Desir still in the PNC got closer to Mohamed during the Adriana Younge tragedy. Mohamed became chief cook and bottle-washer in this affair. That was the beginning of the rise of monarchial thoughts by Mohamed.
Reeling from the sanctions by the Americans and with no space in Guyana to continue his empire, Mohamed found an outlet in politics and for one reason only – he was an accepted king in the opposition camp.

Mohamed became close to the Younge family and took control of and began to finance the “scrapeheads” and the kind of people who burned down the hotel where Younge died.
Nationalist obligation to country should have compelled all opposition parties to condemn Mohamed because, after all, his penetration of Guyanese society threatened the economy of Guyana. An embedded Mohamed could cause sanctions against Guyana, thus devastating our economy.
But insane hatred for the PPP blinded the opposition to the danger of Mohamed. The PNC got close to him. The AFC courted him, and Amanza Walton-Desir, when asked about having party relation with him, did not dismiss it, although political commonsense dictated that she should.

Mohamed knew the PNC had created space for him and his party’s tentacles began to spread not in traditional PPP areas, but those of the PNC. Mohamed actually created a prison for the PNC. Once he had fastened himself in low-income areas that are PNC strongholds, the PNC activists in the area could not have ostracised him because it could have triggered an adverse reaction.

That was one part of the prison. The other part is that PNC leaders began to savage Mohamed two weeks before the campaign ended and that did not go down nicely with PNC supporters, who thought that the PNC was now using PPP language to condemn Mohamed, and had joined up with the PPP to oust Mohamed from what they considered his rightful place.
To understand this is simple. All the opposition parties made Mohamed into an acceptable name and low-income urban districts saw WIN and PNC as one, so they became confused when top PNC leaders began to use unsavoury language against WIN and they switched loyalty to WIN.

I believe this explains the current strong electoral presence by WIN in the SOPs that I am currently searching. WIN looks set to become the major opposition party. For me, this is a sad day. The PNC is part of Guyana, and has always been so.
I have known dozens and dozens of good PNC leaders in my 58 years in politics, so it is kind of hard to take not seeing it as the other half of parliament. The PNC needs to regroup as urgently as yesterday.

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.