Elections: role of the polls 

Mar 28, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News- Another call must be made on the postures of the PPP, PNC, and AFC on this year’s elections.  Crucial is an understated way to describe the upcoming elections.  It is mostly so to disgruntled Guyanese.  They know that the tangible is in their midst.  Oil money by the barrel.  They also know that their share is negligible, skimpy.  It is dwarfed by the lavishness experienced by the private sector and others connected to the PPP Government.  These are the Guyanese- the disgruntled and disappointed by their dismal circumstances- on whom I focus.  I see them as the key to the eventual winner in this season of elections.

The PPP is, as always, supercharged.  I detect a group ready for elections within the hour; an exaggeration, but it should ram home the point that the PPP is ready.  In contrast, I cannot shake the sense that there is a certain casualness, a laidback (we have things under control) attitude from the PNC’s side of the elections equation.  It must know something that no one else in Guyana knows.  Because of the commanding position that it enjoys in Guyana, there is no way that the PPP doesn’t know what the PNC knows.  Not necessarily with pinpoint accuracy, but with intelligence that is not so distant from reality as to be meaningless.

By my thinking, all of this hinges on the tea leaves; the polls, the polls, the polls.  I believe that all the parties in the elections had to have done their own private polls, the results of which they are keeping to themselves.  I further believe that the Mohameds have conducted their own poll, if only to determine which way the wind is blowing.  It would be shocking if none of the parties haven’t tested the waters through polling.  Not to do a poll would be like a driver without a steering wheel on a dark night on an unknown road.  A dangerous one.  Because the PPP has bottomless bags of moolah, it may have done more than one.  It is a good year to be a respected, well recommended pollster.  The PPP said that it will carry elections day by an avalanche.  Whiteout and wipeout, per VP Jagdeo.  In that case, the PNC and company should pack their haversacks and head for the hills, start readying for 2030.  That is, if there is a 2030.  Interpret in any way that comforts.  Or disturbs.  For its part, the PNC is not tekkin leff and is ‘confident’ of victory in the battle royale shaping up.  A battle royale, or a battle not worth its name, is the puzzle for Guyanese.

Here is my call.  A well-run poll with a well put together structure (methodology) by a well-respected pollster cannot be providing the two or three political parties with poll results where both of them are winning, and by a comfortable margin.  If that’s so, then something is wrong with the polling itself.  Or wrong with the people polled.  Or wrong with the way the polls are interpreted.  In the matter of the latter, it could be the putting on of one’s best face in a bad situation.  Who is guilty of such a stretch?  Who is busy fooling both themselves, their supporters, the nation?  The questions are tabled publicly, because both leading competitors are laying their hands on the winner’s crown from now.

Now, I believe that any halfway decent poll done would indicate that there are droves of unhappy Guyanese.  How many, well, that is the mystery.  And nobody ain’t talking out of turn.  Where the indigenous community used to be accorded the honour of being the so-called ‘swing’ vote, I think that that cradle has shifted to another direction for this election season.  It is the combination, the population of Guyanese who are disgusted with the way things are that now represent the vital swing vote.  If these potential voters form a solid bloc of present fence sitters and party watchers, that could be trouble for all the parties in this crab barrel.  They are up for grabs, and who has the edge, who has done the work, to grab the lion’s share of them?  To take this further, who has the structure, who has the organization, and who has the persuasive power that could sway the uncertain?  What spoiler role would Mohamed, the Younger, play in elections where he is not inhibited in any manner?  The disgruntled are unhappy, they want plenty.  Start with money.  Then clean governance.  Then trusted leadership.  Guyanese want everything and they want it last week.  These Guyanese represent the deciding elections factor.  The secret.  Low hanging fruit and tough-to-please at the same time.  The answer to the elections riddle, the truth behind the boasts.  The disgruntled voters may be the biggest segment of the waiting electorate, because some of the polled may not speak their mind due to fear.  Who has the inside track to them?  Who is courting them?  Who has the better chance of winning them over?

Last, there is enormous disillusionment with the PPP and PNC; that traditional choice is driving Guyanese up a wall.  The challenge for them, is where is the alternative?  Who could be trusted to be a difference maker, truly for the people?  The diehards are guaranteed.  The disgruntled hold the deciding cards.  How I see it, call it.

(Elections: role of the polls )

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)        

 

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