THERE is an aspect of President Ali’s politics that is analysed only with half metrics. Most commentators give due recognition to the President’s street-level politics which has endeared new followers to him personally, and to his party, generally speaking. This aspect of his politics ubiquitously flows, without fail, from the lips and pen of almost all commentators. It’s an inescapable feature of his presidency, which many believed had a positive impact on the 2025 elections results.
However, there are less analysed aspects of his affability, that is to say, the origins and effect on the body politic. In terms of the origins, there are two overriding considerations. Foresight: the analyst should seek to understand whether President Ali had the foresight to envision that a new and more interactive or animated style of presidential interaction is a necessary introit to arrest and reverse the stagnant — or declining in many respects — polling numbers of his party. Personality: is it that this highly interactive output is simply ingrained in his personality and he was simply the man for these times, and it is mere political fortuity that his personality happens to dovetail with one of the greatest political needs of his party in this epoch? In my view, the two are mutually inclusive.
If we look at President Ali’s ministerial career which was the political forerunner to his presidency, from reasoned recall, he certainly did not capture the attention of the nation as the affable people person who grounded with the common man. Maybe this quality was known to those very close to him, but had not seeped out into the national consciousness. Or perhaps, the party’s leadership structure and the political role he was asked to play acted as a curtailing effect on these innate qualities. Perhaps, upon becoming Numero Uno, there were no tabs on him and his true personality was unfurled. Or could it be that he has an adaptable utility personality that stood behind a direct, purposefully engineered political strategy that transformed him into the voter magnet he eventually became?
Whichever way it is sliced or diced, the effect of his personality is a defined transformation in representative politics in Guyana. President Ali’s first term raised the political bar for politicians of all stripes, shades and estate. He is now the standard bearer for interactive, representative politics.
The Guyanese population have loudly signalled that they want their representatives to be personable, interactive, in their faces, up-close and personal. The parties that were able to read the tea leaves and responded appropriately got positive results at the just concluded General and Regional Elections. The WIN party leader copycatted this strategy — not that he lacked some charm of his own — and came away with handsome results. The party slowest to respond to this heightened political thirst in the population was APNU; the results were congruent. This reality probably set in after the elections.
We heard Terrence Campbell, APNU’s lead in the 13th parliament, acknowledge this failing and iterating that he will be leading his parliamentary colleagues into every corner of the country. APNU is yet to demonstrate that it has a candidate that can transfer political charm and charisma in a manner receptive to the population or, will this trait be engineered and cultivated over time? Simply showing up in communities, though necessary – – and a minimum requirement — does not seem to be sufficient to woo new people to political parties.
Essentially, President Ali has changed the political culture. Every political representative at all levels is now under pressure to interact with his/her constituency. This is the beginning of the end of desktop, office-based politics. No longer should activists be allowed to hide behind party lists. Once extracted at whatever level — national, regional or local government — they each have to interact with their communities and deliver services.
In fact, the President and his party apparatus now have the onus, going forward, to select candidates foremost for their community activism. Representatives hiding behind party lists while fetching around nasty attitudes, disruptive demeanours and power-drunk deportments will severely diminish the effectiveness of entire lists. Political inclusion, training, sifting and simply laying down the law to adherents is now a necessity for political survivability.
This is more of a rigid requirement in the ruling PPP/C, that it will be in any other party, simply because the PPP/C is in power and the President is the trendsetter. The PPP/C will have to find the political will to bench those who exhibit crude, ill-mannered and tactless interaction with their communities, or those who choose to be representatives in absentia. The PPP/C must engineer this throughout its ranks or risk losing future political capital.
We perhaps should even be entering the territory of annual political performance appraisals. Successive or consistent failure should trigger some form of penalty from simple reprimand all the way up to demotion, recall or revocation.