ANYONE who knows an ounce about the biodiversity of our planet knows that the most phenomenal, concentrated movement of living creatures takes place on the Serengeti plains. It’s a marvel to behold, driven by raw instincts of survival. It’s a story filled with the miracle of birth, the beauty of a cascade of diversity coming together to protect each other while moving towards a common destination. In the massive push many pay the ultimate price either falling to the harsh conditions or the sharp claws and pearly fangs of predators.
Guyana’s political space is akin to the breathtaking Serengeti. The political migration taking place in Guyana is unprecedented and simply phenomenal. With so many moving parts to unpack, it is an intrigue that will provide talking points for even the casual observer for years to come.
The great migration is moving in the direction of the PPP. Admittedly some trickling migrations are heading in other directions as well.
One thing for sure is that the PNC and the AFC are suffering the most severe of the migration outflows. Another nexus with the Serengeti is that the creatures move in convoys from locations that have been grazed, become parched, baren and fragile and lack the necessary ingredients to sustain and maturate their inhabitants.
AFC, the biggest loser so far, has become barren, dry, empty, and lonely. The most destructive painful blow to their march to extinction came from their collaborators. APNU most savagely attacked and ate the AFC down to bare bones. Leaving behind just a few fossils from a bygone era that was full of life, nestled in an active political biodiversity which was itself a marvel of our political history. A brand of political archaeological investigation is necessary to understand the bizarre rapid fossilisation of the AFC.
The PNC itself has experienced some migratory political phenomenon of its own. Just five short years later, David Granger’s entire cabinet who were members of his own party are not part of APNU’s electoral ensemble for the 2025 elections cycle. They have either gone to a new party, into political seclusion or have been exiled by Aubrey Norton. The lone survivor being Volda Lawrence.
Apart from this unprecedented situation, PNC have also lost countless parliamentarians and senior functionaries. This is earth shakingly significant to our political landscape. Panic set in to the PNC, and out of sheer political desperation, Norton resorted to savagery against his own parliamentary partner, breaking even the laws of the jungle. He reached into the belly of the AFC and disembowelled it with the claws of treachery.
What Norton did, that is being hailed and celebrated by his support base, will come back to bite him. Some of his looted personalities will continually have to be monitored for a developing culture of debauchery, which is the standard and modus operandi he has set for his political operations. Viewing the larger picture, the question is, given such degree of savage backstabbing of his own ally, how can a Dr. Irfaan Ali-led government trust Norton to be honourable in his dealings with respect to possibilities for any form of post-electoral administrative collaboration? Nothing about what the PNC has done to the AFC should be celebrated, it serves to inject further distrust into an already fragile and tense political space.
Members of the opposition and their supporters love to hate the PPP for orchestrating the famed Charrandass Persaud vote, but what Norton, Juretha and Sherod et al have done is many times worse. This was a conspiracy against a political partner who was in an already weakened state and needed some patience, love, and appreciation despite flaunting its oversized ego.
To the contrary, the APNU+AFC coalition was a fierce opponent of the PPP, and it is par for the course that the PPP use all means at their disposal to destabilize their opponent.
There are many political pundits who believe that a unified opposition could defeat the mighty PPP, Norton himself has said so, yet he was willing to jeopardise that possibility for display of personal political power derived from a larger stronger historical party.
While the opposition clan continues to fragment, and some fall to sadistic predators, as those in Team Mohameds, the mass migration proceeds towards the PPP, the political oasis. The most stunning feature of this unprecedented political migration is the sheer nature of its political biodiversity. Activists of all races, religious persuasion, and economic status, up and down the political echelons of the AFC and PNC are openly active on behalf of the PPP, while others are in quiet support. This kind of massive political migration is bound to impact the ballot box positively. The population is bound to take their voting cues from the movement of activists. So, a great migration of voters should not be unexpected.