PNC challenge

Sep 25, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

Kaieteur News – The PNC finds itself attached to the horns of a dilemma. Work with the PPP and neutralize WIN. Or partner with WIN and dig a hole for the PPP. In a whiff, the PNC went from potential winner to surprise loser, and now for a chance to be spoiler or difference-maker. It is delicious, if anyone were to ask me. Nobody did, but there is a question that must be addressed head-on, settled somehow. How will the PNC be? Then – what will it do? What will become of it?

The PPP’s Bharrat Jagdeo came visiting, and he left his calling card for the PNC heads of divisions. Open for business. It could be a godsend for the party that once ruled the roost in Guyana for 28 years, and held together for another 4-5. The 2025 elections left it looking like a pale and sunken shadow of itself. What will it do, take up Dr. Jagdeo’s calculated roll of the dice (his preference to ally with the known)? It is a difficult choice, as the party is caught between the PPP and its 36 seats and WIN and its 16. Compared to the other two, the PNC’s nine looks like if it has two zeros (009) in front of it instead of one. It is a tough world, this one that Guyana occupies.

The worst approach for the nine-seaters would be if it were to allow itself to take a nibble of Dr. Jagdeo’s bait. One lick and it is over – hook, line, and sinker. Stinker, too, let us all be sure not to forget. How would the PNC look, that is the first question? How low would it sink in the eyes of a battalion of Guyanese, none like its own diehard supporters? For one, it would register as a bargain hunter, which isn’t the end of the world. For another, it would give every impression of being a bottom feeder. In other words, whatever has to be done will be done to get off the ground floor. A bottom feeder of any stripe is in the same company as a skunk, and just as cuddly. There is low, and then there’s low. But, as I do for the PPP, so I do for the PNC. Helpfulness and Kindness are my middle initials. The rest is up to them.

Let’s jump into the future. It would be a spectacle for the PNC to be voting in parliament more often than not with the PPP majority. How would that appeal to Guyanese at a general level? The mere articulation of the thought is enough to generate some heat inside the PNC mainstream. A bigger spectacle would be if the PNC snares a handful of ministerial portfolios already reduced to rubble, in terms of prestige, and a number of State boards. All the old conspiracy theories involving Burnham and Jagan and the PPP and PNC would enjoy a resurgence of interest, if not unstoppable energy itself. On paper, this may seem implausible, but all Guyanese do well to remember that the PPP dodged a September silver bullet, and the PNC got clobbered by a sand truck. What I am laying out relative to cooperation, pursuant to the Bharrat Jagdeo orchestration, is how the PPP and PNC could join hands to overpower a threat to both. An existential one, as I deduce.

My free advice to the PNC is to know when to abstain, and when to split its affections between the PPP and WIN. Yes, I know: the PNC will have to kiss the hand that smacked it across the face. It is a balancing act, and the party that is now in the doldrums should never be too skewed towards one group. It must always be about what is best for its own interests (and ambitions) first and always. Since Dr. Jagdeo has some ideas twirling around in his head, I suggest that the PNC puts on its negotiation cap. Admittedly, since 2020, any word that has any relation to negotiation has taken on a traitorous cast. Still, the party with nothing to lose could collect some much-needed luster for itself by having a list of to dos and to must haves that would make for an interesting environment in the next half year to a year.

WIN could find itself sandbagged between the two behemoths. Its people have to learn to navigate the rapids with the falls, and stay afloat. The PNC is now at that stage that it makes a misstep and it is over. Even Jagdeo wouldn’t be able to put the PPP’s one-time nemesis back together again. In fact, I am on the safest ground in saying that he would be the first to beat a hasty retreat from the PNC, or jump on its prostrate form.

(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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