As Guyana prepares to celebrate its 60th anniversary, its political landscape is undergoing a seismic change. The People’s National Congress (PNC) is fighting for survival. The party that was in Government when Guyana became an independent country on May 26, 1966, is truly on life support. The PNC has been a major political party long before independence. Known as Forbes Burnham’s party, the PNC has been the major opponent of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) for most of Guyana’s modern political history. In fact, the PNC arose out of the belly of the PPP.
It is sad to see what has become of Forbes Burnham’s party. This past week, several persons who served in senior capacities and/or as Members of Parliament for the PNC switched to the PPP. But the exodus started post-2020, with a trickle. It became a tsunami in the months preceding Elections 2025 on September 1, 2025. Since Elections 2025, it has continued.
The exodus is not limited to those who serve as senior activists, as MPs or as senior members of the party. Grassroots, staunch supporters, persons who have never voted for any other political party, and persons who made sacrifices for the party also joined in the exodus. Many of these supporters switched sides, opting to join the PPP. It is true that not all who have abandoned the PNC have chosen the PPP. Many PNC supporters still cannot bring themselves to support the PPP. But they have given up on the PNC. In Elections 2025, some chose to stay home, and many deposited their votes in a new party which they knew could not win Elections 2025. The PNC supporters, however, wanted to send a message to the PNC: get your act together, or we are not coming back.
Since Elections 2025, the fear that PNC supporters had that their party had abandoned them, that their party was clueless and that their party no longer serves the interest of the citizens who have sustained it for more than 60 years has heightened. The hope that some supporters had that the party will recalibrate and will realign with the interests of its supporters has all but evaporated.
It is going down the road of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) and the AFC. The WPA and the AFC are not even political parties anymore. They are merely paper configurations. The irony is that the WPA grafted itself onto the PNC as “clutching at a straw to avoid drowning”. The PNC became the only hope that the WPA had to survive even as a paper entity. Now the PNC is going down the same road, rapidly disintegrating, with no hope left for survival. The AFC had the presence of mind that their only way of surviving was to delink from the PNC. But their supporters will never forgive them for the Elections 2020 “hustle”.
The PNC cannot even come up with any semblance of a plan to reinvigorate itself. A few weeks ago, it decided in its desperation for a survival plan to begin holding “street Parliaments”. But in these “street Parliaments”, they found themselves screaming at themselves. The party that has made walking out of Parliament its weapon to oppose the Government found itself with the people walking away from it. Actually, the people are not even showing up anymore. Quietly, the much-touted “street Parliaments” initiative has died. The prophesy that “everything the PNC touches is blighted” has come through.
Nobody knows today who really is the leader of the PNC. Aubrey Norton, who was chosen by a PNC Congress as the leader, is barely seen these days. His designated Parliamentary leader, Terrance Campbell, is confused and clueless and has never been accepted by the party’s rank and file or the party’s senior leaders. To his credit, Ganesh Mahipaul, who was a small player during the PNC-led APNU/AFC period in Government between 2015 and 2020 and who is not considered a possible leader now or ever, has emerged as the only one who is trying to stay politically relevant.
Mahipaul has stated he is not worried about the latest group of party leaders and MPs who have fled the camp. He reasoned that none of the latest members who have fled were in any way important to the PNC. Putting it in my words, they were mere hangers-on. While he conceded that anytime people leave a political party, it has the potential to hurt, he contended that he does not see the PNC as any weaker than they were before this last bunch left. He might be right because the PNC is so weak that it is incapable of even competing in a community that was its strongest and most loyal stronghold. For example, even in Linden they might have become incapable of competing with other political parties.
Of course, that was Mahipaul putting forward the best face he could. Shurwayne Holder was the chairman of the PNC before he walked. He occupied a higher position in the PNC executive than Mahipaul himself did. He was no “small fish”. There were also persons who served as MPs in the last Parliament who walked. Does Mahipaul believe that the PNC chose “small fish” to put in Parliament? And is Mahipaul a “small fish”?
If diehard PNC supporters believed before Elections 2025 that they needed to temporarily abandon the PNC to send them a message, the months since Elections 2025 ended have cleared their eyes to the stark reality that their party is on the verge of dying.
As Guyana celebrates its 60th independence anniversary, some are now preparing for the funeral of the PNC. I am hoping that somehow they survive.