I am convinced that there is a deficit in the strategic political thinking and activism of APNU. To boot, there is also a chronic deficit of general creativity.
The manifestation of this assessment of APNU shows up almost every day in the dealings of the party.
When APNU is observed, one walks away with a sense that they do not fully understand the dynamics that are shaping political realities of the day.
Either that, or they have been so bruised and lacerated by the 2025 election results that their mentality has shrunk down to match the defeated 12 seats; now they are finding it hard to extricate themselves.
Almost every move made by the PNC/APNU reads like the plot of Emperor Julian’s military campaign into Persia. Julian burned his own supply ships and was wounded in the process, leaving Rome markedly weaker.
To make my point, I need not go back to the Aubrey Norton leadership meltdown that led to the ignominious 12-seat result, that is old news. Political observers expected that having taken the PNC to the lowest of lows, there would’ve been a resolute, robust response to the reclamation of former glory. The rescue efforts are just as disastrous and self-defeating as the pathways taken to the 12-seat crash.
At a press conference soon after the 2025 elections, Vice-president Jagdeo asserted that most voters in the traditional PNC strongholds didn’t want to vote for the PPP, just as they didn’t want to vote for the PNC.
Both David Hinds and Aubrey Norton have made public assertions to the effect that Afro-Guyanese did not vote for the PPP. The summation of this is that three of Guyana’s most experienced politicians at the helm of Guyana’s three most historic political outfits, have all agreed that the PPP is not a real threat to destabilising or dislodging the PNC’s main support base.
In other words, the PPP has at its disposal the awesome constitutional power of the state, massive oil revenues and the distinction of being the oldest and largest political party in Guyana and yet cannot legitimately be considered a major threat to disentangling PNC from its traditional support base. This pits the PNC and the PPP as rivals for political power but not a real threat to each other’s main support base.
The WIN-PNC dynamic is not the same. WIN is a direct threat to the very political base of the PNC. The more of your base you lose to WIN, the less likely you will remain a power rival to the PPP. The 2025 election result was a crossroad for the PNC.
It had to decide whether it will pursue a primary path of re-establishing itself as a rival of the PPP or act as a main appendage to WIN, it chose the latter. I will put this as euphemistically as I can. This is the most dim-witted, asinine, dotish and luddite approach to extant political realities.
How do you co-operate with a political entity that has actually proven that it is able to dislodge the very base from which you draw your existence? How do you co-operate with a political entity whose daily actions are ruthlessly committed to keeping you out of the political spotlight while eroding your base?
Using history as a lesson, there is a reason why Burnham did not seek active co-operation with Rodney, because Rodney was fiercely committed to capturing the African base and displacing the PNC. Today the leaders of Burnham’s party are embracing a party that has plundered the PNC in worst ways than Rodney.
There are two dimensions that make WIN more of a danger to the PNC than Rodney could’ve ever dreamed of. Firstly, WIN could demonstrably dislodge the PNC’s base by electoral means. His resort to accumulation of resources for an armed revolution suggests that Rodney did not believe his infiltration of the African base was sufficient for electoral success.
The second dimension, Rodney did not have at his disposal the hundreds of millions of dollars available to Azruddin. Perhaps, the PNC looked at these two dimensions and found that it is too overwhelming for them to overcome. As such, they reclined in the proverbial saying, “if you can’t beat them, join them.” This is as unfortunate as it is tragic.
It was unwise for the PNC to haggle over seats on commissions to which the PNC has no power to appoint. Simply catalogue the actions of WIN and put it in the political conversation, but do not fuss over it.
A seat on the Local Government Commission (LGC) does not add an ounce of electoral capital to the PNC, when their African support base goes to the polls in 2030-31. Whether or not the PNC hold seats on a tribunal will not be a factor, it will not even feature on the political platform. The PNC does not need to be entwined with any frills at the moment.
The more attention they give to these side attractions, the more it distracts from actual consolidating and rebuilding its base. In this regard the PNC has a lot to learn from the PPP. After the 2015 loss of power, the PPP took a decision not to bother itself with appointments to boards and commissions, it opposed the government in the court of public opinion.
The PPP knew what the PNC is yet to find out; the typical base voter does not care how many boards and committees you sit on. The PPP was able to cut the frills and concentrate on re-energising their base.
When the African base voted for WIN over the PNC, WIN did not have a single seat on any committee, board, commission or government organ. At the next general and regional elections this fact will not matter to any of them either.
GECOM is a different matter, in that, those commission and scrutineer seats require lots of institutional memory and experience. On the PNC’s weakest day WIN can never, in this epoch, match the institutional strength of the PNC. As such, the PNC is better off ceding as little ground as possible to WIN and concentrate on holding on for dear life; everything else is unnecessary frills.
This needs no argument; the strategic political benefit is as plain as day. However, this rush for general co-operation with WIN to escape the curse of lack of opposition unity will hurt the PNC really bad, but that is not the main tragedy. The real tragedy is that the current leaders of the PNC are clueless.