Guyana’s political world has undergone something of a seismic shift. In the matter of a single day the voters of this country overturned the party model which has existed in one form or another for the last seven decades and replaced it with an entirely novel political scenario. What this means in the longer term is very difficult to predict.
Since the second half of the 1950s our politics has had an ethnic basis, with the majority of Indians supporting the PPP, and most Africans choosing the PNC (whose name has undergone changes over time) to represent them. Since neither side has sufficient ethnic support to form a government on its own, votes are needed from elsewhere, and in the case of the PPP those have come from a significant portion of the Amerindian electorate.
How to ameliorate the rigidity of this system has occupied the attention of many observers over the years. The problem has appeared particularly deserving of consideration because the PPP has the advantage of a larger ethnic voting bloc than the PNC, and could, therefore, in theory retain an indefinite grip on a parliamentary majority. The only time the latter party has ever achieved office legally was in association with a third entity as it did in 1964 in affiliation with the UF, and in 2015 with the AFC. The latter alliance did not survive the election of 2020, and voters punished the AFC for what they regarded as the betrayal of its declared principles when in office.
There has in the past been talk of coalitions of a different order involving the two dinosaur parties, but how serious either of them was about these discussions is a matter of doubt, particularly given the fact that trust between them was sadly lacking.
Towards the end of the 1990s and particularly following the protests of 1997-98, ‘inclusion’ became the word du jour and the amendments to the Constitution in the year 2000 and its aftermath attempted to reflect this concept in a practical way. These attempts were at best only partly successful, however, and some of the provisions have simply been ignored by the PPP/C government. It has made it very apparent it does not intend to make some of them function in any meaningful fashion.
After its 2020 victory, President Irfaan Ali had a different approach to the issue, introducing the notion of ‘One Guyana’, which seems to have been designed to attract APNU voters into the Freedom House camp, thereby miniaturising if not eliminating the main opposition altogether. At the same time he bypassed the opposition even when constitutionally required to consult its leader, for example. Changing the political formula in this fashion was always an unrealistic expectation, although the ruling party did succeed in attracting a very modest number of known opposition names to its camp in time for the 2025 election.
This notwithstanding, the PPP/C must have felt reasonably complacent about the 2025 national ballot, more especially given the very lacklustre campaign mounted by its opponents. But three months before election day a phenomenon materialised from out of left field which no one anticipated. This was the new party, WIN, which did not fit any of the traditional stereotypes of previous third parties.
It did not represent any particular ethnicity and made no claim to bridging the divide between the two largest racial groups. It was led by an Indian Muslim, but attracted its support mostly from former APNU supporters. Despite the fact that the PPP/C won a comfortable majority in 2025, and that most of its Indian base did not defect to WIN, it was still unnerved. In the first place, the newcomer dislodged APNU from its place as the main opposition, and Mr Mohamed became the new Leader of the Opposition.That in itself altered the political balance and in particular the parliamentary balance that had been the reality for so many decades.
There were certain other features which made what happened a cause for unease for the ruling party. Mr Mohamed is by all accounts a multimillionaire, so had no difficulty travelling around the country and being generous where he saw fit. The government has always been the one to dole out benefits and promises of benefits as inducements to vote for it, especially in the interior, and it certainly did not expect to come into competition in that department from another party.
In addition, its equilibrium has been disturbed by the tragedy of the MV Barima, which exposed the incompetence of state agencies prior to the event, and whose consequences the government handled appallingly badly. It attempted to control the narrative by not involving the opposition in any of the decision-making, and then resisting the public clamour for the raising of the vessel from the sea-bed, among various other things. The issues in relation to the latter have still not played out, even though almost four months on from the disaster a company is finally engaged in trying to refloat the ferry.
The magnitude of the Barima death toll galvanised a range of civic groups, not forgetting the Amerindians themselves, who were the ones mostly served by the ill-fated boat. The ruling party may have gauged rightly or wrongly it could ride that out in its customary fashion, but Mr Mohamed’s role clearly made them nervous. He went immediately to the area trying to help, and in contrast to the government’s somewhat ham-fisted efforts, soon offered to pay for a company to raise the ferry, and financially assisted victims and their relatives, along with other initiatives. This was not something those based in Robb Street found easy to digest.
For Freedom House at a purely political level the sinking has repercussions in relation to a critical constituency, namely, the Amerindians. It has no intentions, therefore, of allowing WIN to take a substantial number of Indigenous votes away. This may partly account for recent government actions directed against the party’s leader, although it may not be the whole story.
Which brings us to a unique feature about Mr Mohamed as a political leader: he and his father, Mr Nazar Mohamed, are subject to extradition proceedings instituted by the United States for offences which include money laundering. It has raised questions in some quarters as to why a man with no background of any kind in politics should go into the fray. However, whatever his original motivation, he appears now to have been caught up in the stimulation and excitement the political drama can provide.
Initially the ruling party clearly thought that it could operate with delay mechanisms by not appointing Mr Mohamed as opposition leader or holding another election for the Chairmanship of Region 10 (which it still hasn’t done), for example. The expectation clearly was that the WIN leader would be extradited before all that became necessary, but as things are the law is taking its usual unhurried course and in the meantime Mr Mohamed could consequently still be active in the political field.
Aside from the fall-out from Barima, there may be something else behind the ruling party’s current actions directed against the Leader of the Opposition. Unusually Mr Mohamed is a former PPP insider, who is reported to have been close to President Irfaan Ali himself. The assumption on the part of outsiders, therefore, is that he may know a good deal about Freedom House operations, which the latter would prefer not be made public. All that can be said at this stage is that it was Mr Mohamed who drew attention to the President’s farm, which had not been publicly known about previously.
Whatever their thinking, the ruling party clearly wants Mr Mohamed locked up, since the Chief Magistrate has not revoked his bail in the extradition case. So we are treated to all the strange events initially connected to what happened outside the home of the Police Special Branch Head in Kitty. The net result of that is that the Opposition Leader is in the Lusignan jail, where he has made serious allegations about the conditions under which he is being kept. And now, it has been reported, other possible crimes are being considered to charge him with.
As was said in an earlier editorial in Kiskadee Watch, the government has to make a distinction between the fact he is in court for extradition purposes where the law will take its inevitable course, and what is constitutionally due to Mr Mohamed in his role as Leader of the Opposition. What cannot be defended is harassment against him in his constitutional role; the ruling party must simply wait for the outcome of the extradition case.
The PPP has also made overtures of a sort at the political level. A few weeks ago PPP General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo proposed that the PPP/C and the PNCR should work together. “Unless our parties, these two parties change today, the era of binary thinking of old is long gone. We will face extinction. We will face extinction,” he said.
APNU Parliamentary Leader Terrence Campbell was less than impressed, telling Kiskadee Watch that Mr Jagdeo’s greatest concern was the possibility that if the two opposition parties coalesced they would constitute a threat to the governing party’s hold on power. He is probably right about this, although at the present stage it seems unlikely that the two would join, given that a fair number of WIN’s supporters and some of its representatives in Parliament come from APNU. And of course WIN defeated the latter in its stronghold of Linden.
It is always possible, of course, that this will not apply some distance down the road. No one can be quite sure what will happen to WIN if Mr Mohamed is extradited, and if his party lacks strong leadership its members will be vulnerable to an alliance with APNU where the latter will dominate.
Whatever the case, in a general sense it is impossible to know at this stage whether the new political landscape has any durability, or whether the seismic changes which have given it its current features will settle back into a more familiar configuration. All that can be said is that the power for long-term change probably lies with the Amerindian vote.
Discussion