THE words of Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo have analytical usage in studying the future of the PNC. Mr. Jagdeo said there were PNC voters in the September 2025 election that did not want to vote for the PPP but chose not to vote for the PNC itself. They rejected the PNC on voting day, and that explains the 16 seats for WIN.
What needs to be analysed is why so many traditional PNC voters rejected their own party that has been a part of the Guyanese social and sociological landscape since its birth in 1957 and formed the government as recently as 2015.
How can any PNC stalwart remain emotionally stable when they read the statistics? From 31 seats at the time of the election to 12. From 217,920 votes in 2020 to 77,998 in 2025. From 47 percent of total votes won in 2020 to 18 percent in 2025. The term “rejection” may be far too mild to describe what happened to the PNC in 2025.
There is definitely a multi-causal explanation for why the PNC lost so terribly in 2025, but the Jagdeo statement cries out for interpretation. Mr. Jagdeo said PNC folks didn’t want to vote for PPP/C, but they didn’t want to vote for the PNC either.
Why the PNC constituencies did not want the PNC in 2025. I believe from 2020, African leaders that either belonged to the PNC or were high-profile demagogues propagandising for the PNC appeared in the eyes and minds of PNC constituencies as either foolish or deceitful or misguided or deceiving (as distinct from deceitful), politically dishonest, culturally insulting, or simply wrong people.
The genesis of this typology began in 2020, and Norton led the clique in deceiving African people who thought he had no shame. Norton said multiple times that he had the 2020 statements of poll (SOPs) but from 2020 to the next election, he never publicly displayed them. PNC folks knew he was lying to them and felt insulted.
From the time Norton proclaimed that APNU+AFC won the 2020 election and he had the SOPs to prove it and refused to prove it, his standing among PNC supporters began to diminish. He could not have recaptured that lost credibility because he was trapped in a cul-de-sac. If he produced the SOPs, it would have still dented his credibility because they would have shown that the APNU+AFC lost.
By the time the 2025 election came around, Norton was a spent force. Next was Roysdale Ford. PNC voters lost respect for him because of the sycophantic image he portrayed on Nomination Day. He rightfully pulled out of the race to become leader of the PNC during its last congress because he publicly rejected the manipulation that accompanied the planning of the election.
Together with Amanza Walton-Desir, they declined to contest the executive position. Walton-Desir did the right thing, and that earned the respect of PNC supporters. She left the PNC and formed her own party. But on Nomination Day, Ford’s name appeared on the PNC list. There and then PNC supporters lost respect for him.
There were people not on the PNC list who were seen as PNC aficionados. Vincent Alexander is considered a protector of the PNC’s interests. Like Ford, African Guyanese lost respect for Alexander. Alexander publicly declined to appear again on the Freddie Kissoon Show, and when he gave his reasons, African Guyanese must have seen in him the personification of African leadership failure.
Alexander declined to appear again on the show because he said he did not like the nasty comments against him on social media when he last appeared on the show. It had to cause the loss of both respect and admiration for Alexander and cost the PNC votes on September 1, 2025.
Not only was his reason stupid, but it was cowardly. Once you are armed with your beliefs that you employ in the service of the community whose interests you seek to preserve and protect, then you will receive all types of stupid and crazy criticism, and the last thing that should be on your mind is deterrence.
If you are going to regret the hurtful things people say about you, then get out of public life at a speed faster than Usain Bolt because you are letting down the people on whose behalf you speak. There is no question in my mind that when Alexander said he couldn’t handle the negative words he saw in the comments section and thus he will no longer be interviewed, African Guyanese told themselves that he could no longer speak for them. Why should any human be accepted in society who is afraid of what people say about them? People will always talk!
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.
