Election candidates

Jun 21, 2025 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – Finally, the two main political parties have announced their chosen candidates for President and Prime Minister in the upcoming elections. While there is a lot of hoopla surrounding which parties intend to contest the elections and in what format, the electorate deserves to have a clear choice to make.

The Guyanese people deserve to know who the candidates are, so they can do their assessments and make an informed choice with their votes. Now that names and faces have been put forward for the positions by both the PPP and APNU, head-to-head comparisons can be made and the citizenry can decide which team is better suited to lead Guyana into its most pivotal era yet. The PPP has confidently declared that incumbent President Irfan Ali will again lead their ticket as Presidential candidate with Brigadier (R’td) Mark Phillips as Prime Minister.

APNU has unequivocally decided that Aubrey Norton will be its Presidential Candidate and (more tacitly) said that former AFC member Juretha Fernandes will be its Prime Ministerial candidate. While five years in government would have certainly given President Ali definitive experience, it is important to also look at the candidate’s performance in previous leadership roles as well.

Ali spearheaded transformational housing initiatives while serving as Minister of Housing and Water for nine years, and even in opposition post-2015, served as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee and Co-Chair of the Economic Services Committee of the Parliament, all before he turned forty. The PPP is presenting a presidential candidate who is not only youthful and a proven electoral winner, but also possesses decades of executive experience and a proven track record. APNU has finally decided that their candidate for President will be Aubrey Norton. This decision has apparently not been well received by many within the party, and with good reason. Mr. Norton’s leadership experience is limited to his political party.

Even when his party was in government, he was given no leadership or Ministerial portfolio, but was instead relegated to the position of Advisor on Youth Empowerment (he was in his 50’s at the time) in a department within the Ministry of the Presidency. Mr. Norton is hoping to lead an entire nation, when his own party – rightfully – did not believe he could manage a ministry. The current state of affairs in APNU is in fact testament to Mr. Norton’s failures as a leader. Incumbent Prime Minister Brigadier Mark Phillips is again the PPP’s candidate for the position. A giant in his own right, Phillips previously headed the GDF with a strong, capable leadership style that has never come into question on any side of the aisle. Adding the last five years in his current executive role to decades of military leadership experience, the PPP has in effect presented an unimpeachable candidate for Prime Minister – with the perfect combination of experience and competence. Unlike the PPP, the APNU did not formally announce a Prime Ministerial candidate to the people. Instead, the nation learned through supposed leaks that AFC member and parliamentarian Juretha Fernandes would be the candidate.

While the entire back-door stratagem that brought Ms. Fernandes’ to the fore is important – as a manifestation of the mistrust and affinity for dishonesty that exists as part of the APNU-AFC codependent dysfunction – it is also important to consider whether she is in fact a competent pick for the position. Mr. Aubrey Norton on Friday admitted during a press conference that Fernandes was selected because she is a woman and is of indigenous heritage. Appointing a candidate to be a token because they are non-afro Guyanese – despite a lack of leadership experience or track record – is disappointing but unsurprising for the APNU, which partnered with the WPA to contest the 2025 elections. WPA’s David Hinds himself has said that APNU puts unqualified non-blacks in token positions as ‘ethnic window dressing’ so as to attempt to bamboozle the electorate. Former APNU Minister Winston Jordan echoed this perspective when he too said that non-black APNU appointees were ‘sitting on black votes’, implying that they were only chosen for positions because of their race and had no actual place in Parliament.

Their Prime Ministerial pick is a reminder that APNU remains steadfast in its commitment to tribal politics – with its leadership believe that votes of all who look like the candidates they present somehow automatically belong to them, and they therefore do not have to work to convince Guyanese to vote for them – despite their numerous failures and shortcomings in and out of government. It is 2025 and the electorate is informed; voters are looking for competence and substance in candidates.

The candidate’s demonstrated ability to lead and willingness to serve the people is what will determine who wins these elections, not their gender or race. The APNU has presented a Presidential Candidate whose only legacy is now the complete dissemination of his own party and a Prime Ministerial candidate who lacks vital experience and leadership skills to contest an election against a sitting President who has had decades of executive experience and a Prime Minister who has led the nation’s armed forces and deftly managed three different portfolios in his current position.

Timica Eastman

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• APNU, Election candidates, Guyana Elections, PPP, Timica Eastman, win

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