Aug 23, 2025
Kaieteur News – The field for this year’s September 1st general elections remains at six. Though tricky, we hope that there will be a transparent process that gives this country a truly free and fair election result. Guyanese can do without the endless wrangling about who cheated, who took advantage of the electoral system before, during, or after the voting commenced. Citizens need other narratives to inspire them, to help them through tough times. We wish each of the six parties left in the race the best, and call on all of them to contribute as much as they can for a voting and tabulating process on which all can agree, all are proud.
The six includes the ‘big three’ of the PPPC, the APNU, the AFC, and the three newcomers, Assembly of Liberty and Prosperity (ALP), Forward Guyana Movement (FGM), and We Invest in Nationhood (WIN). Four parties, the PPPC, APNU, AFC, and WIN will be competing in all ten of Guyana’s regions, while FGM challenges in seven regions, and ALP is contesting in six regions. They are all in, except that FGM has initiated a court challenge.
Elections in Guyana now stand in a category without compare. For action and excitement, passions and mob scenes, nothing is able to compete with national elections. Cricket is the national sport, but it is doubtful that it generates as many passions, convictions, and differences as elections. It may draw a huge crowd for a final, when Guyana or the West Indies has a chance to come out on top. But for sheer sustained interest and following, elections stand head and shoulders above cricket. The excitement around elections is now beginning, and has 10 days to get to peak acceleration, to the frenzies that are now part and parcel of these five-year contests, where so much is at stake. The battle for the reins of government and power drives men and women to extremes in Guyana. We wish that the usual ugliness that characterizes Guyana’s elections does not enter this year’s campaign. The PPPC Government has tainted the democratic process with mudslinging and blatant misuse of state resources, so that it can triumph and continue wreaking havoc with Guyanese patrimonies, starting with oil.
All the six political parties want to put their hands around it, for government power means control over this rich patrimony. Every Guyanese want the political group that they support to ascend to win, for the thinking is that they will share in the spoils. Although the oil is in a class by itself, and demanding the best from Guyana’s political groups and leaders, they have turned out to be duds. This has been a bone of contention across many domestic cross-sections, with national leaders competing for the prize of who says less about it. Politicians competing with vigor and skill for national office, but anemic and pathetic when prompted to speak inspiringly about oil.
The competitors in the September 1st elections are in the game for power. Yet not a single one of them can find the personal power to stand and speak with genuine passion and vision on how they will represent country and people in their need to get more from their inheritance. Elections prospects generate more interest and more energy than oil. Oil alone has the power to transform this country, and the lives of all citizens. After five years, the record of the major political parties and their leaders have been less than impressive. In fact, the record has been of fear and retreating when the issue is oil. Oil is the transformer, but those fighting to lead Guyana into a new era manifest more of what is cowardly than the required bravery to make oil the main plank of their individual platforms.
In the manner of elections campaign everywhere, they say, they promise, how much they will deliver, how much more they will do than their competitors. But no one is being completely honest, or constructive, about how they are going to make their promises a reality for all Guyanese. Where is the money, what choices made, what sacrificed, and with what results, those are the burning questions? Elections are almost here, may all Guyanese win.
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