Opposition must be seen and heard

Oct 01, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – The new opposition groups have to come out of their shells.  Frankly, other than for the occasional soundbite, they have hardly been visible.  If there is one lesson to be gleaned from 2020-2025, it is that the opposition must be in the people’s consciousness on a sustained basis.  Translation: seen and heard all the time.  More is better.  There is no such animal as bad publicity.  All publicity has its value.  Now when I say opposition, the whole tent is covered.  WIN. PNC. FGM. AFC.  If I neglected to mention any group, apologies.

The PNC has been on the thin side.  Where is Dr. Terrence Campbell?  Facebook page alone, if that is case, will not get the job done, which is to steal the hearts of the people.  Better make that win their hearts, which may play right into the hands of Mr. Azruddin Mohamed.  What happened to him by the way, the man on whom all eyes are fixed?  He hasn’t started yet, so he doesn’t have the luxury of picking and choosing his appearances, his messages.  Social media has its pluses, one of which is reach and instant gratification.  But the WIN leader and team must learn that there is merit in cultivating the print media.  If none other, the independent, mainstream media should be nurtured for maximum exposure.  Both the PNC and WIN need to do something about that gap in their visions, their tactics.

The AFC has been kicking up a cloud of dust.  A good thing, I say, with a nod in the direction of the party’s interim leader, Mr. David Patterson.  As is the situation with humans, on occasion a heavy shock to the system is what is needed to make men and women see god, recognise their limitations.  Or, to say differently, sometimes a man has to fall flat on his face, lose everything, before he pulls himself together.  The AFC has been in the limelight with its position on biometrics and, more recently, the reality of 50% oil profits.  Careful, that’s sacred ground, some folks are going to take offence.  They are both local and foreign.

The FGM’s Amanza Walton-Desir (Ms.) has had to deal with an unhealthy internal development.  No opposition party or leader can afford these distractions.  They dissipate energies from the work at hand, the expectation of voters.  Now I have an expectation of my own to broadcast.  Why is not one opposition group, not all of them in unison, not clamoring for parliament to be convened?  A month ago, Pres. Ali had his inaugural address.  He has since named his cabinet.  Members of his cabinet have been going after what I shall call some loose ends, of which there are many.  Ministers have been working diligently in the last month to tie them up, or cut them off.  Good.  Overdue.  Guyanese deserve more such interest, lots of such energies.  Meanwhile, the opposition groups are either stuck on Facebook, or a picture of nonchalance relative to parliament and their getting going with the business of the people.  Recall that they, too, made their share of lush promises.  Time to start representing, and parliament is the place for a host of issues to be discussed, so that Guyanese get a fair to middling idea of what they have in the new opposition leadership.

WIN’s Mohamed should have been in the forefront of the call for parliament to get going.  He has a long and steep learning curve, and cannot shrink from that challenge.  Parliament will showcase how much he has to offer the Guyanese people, whether they voted for him or not, and his true mettle.  The longer he is out of the once hallowed halls of parliament, the less his hoped-for rising, the more he becomes a subtraction to himself.  Dr. Terrence Campbell is in the same minibus, since he is also new to that riotous floor.  He has to want to be in parliament to display what he is all about, so that Guyanese can conclude he is a man for all seasons, or he is one past his season, or of no season at all.  Perhaps, these leaders are burning the midnight oil trying to get a grip on the intricacies of Standing Orders, and the assets that those can be, once they are skillfully marshalled.  Ms. Amanza Walton-Desir has an edge over the newcomers, as she has been in parliament, and has shown she can hold her own.  The new two could learn from her, not get caught up in any macho swagger.

Here’s the fast and nasty.  Parliament should have already been in session.  The opposition parties pressing for it.  The business of the people on the move.  And, Guyanese get a preview of what they will get from government and opposition, starting right now.

(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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• AFC, FGM, GHK Lall, opposition, Parliament

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