Clapping while suffering a small stroke

May 16, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – There was a time in Guyanese politics when crossing the floor required a degree of shame, or at least the decency to look nervous while doing it. A man would lower his head, avoid eye contact in Parliament, mumble something about “national interest,” and quietly migrate to the other side.

Today, however, defections are treated like football transfers. There are negotiations, strategic leaks, triumphant photo opportunities, and enough smiling handshakes to make you think someone just signed for Manchester City.

In modern Guyanese politics, a crossover is no longer a political decision. It is a televised baptism.

And nowhere has this been elevated into a high political art form more than by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic. Since the Jagans died, the party has perfected the crossover into a psychological instrument. It is no longer merely about gaining one additional prominent opposition supporter. It is about making the opposing camp wake up in cold sweats wondering who is next to disappear from within its ranks.

Of course, this tradition did not begin yesterday. Guyana has always had floor crossers and crossovers. Under Forbes Burnham, figures drifted from The United Force toward the People’s National Congress, and later prominent PPP figures crossed dramatically into Burnham’s orbit.

After the 1964 elections, Forbes Burnham initially governed in coalition with The United Force led by Peter D’Aguiar. As the coalition weakened, a number of UF figures either supported Burnham more directly or moved politically closer to the PNC, helping him consolidate parliamentary control. Among the more notable names associated with this shift were Randolph Cheeks.

The more famous defections, however, came later from the People’s Progressive Party to Burnham’s People’s National Congress during the 1970s. The most significant was Ranji Chandisingh, widely regarded as Cheddi Jagan’s deputy or chief ideologue in the PPP before defecting to the PNC in 1975–76. Other prominent PPP figures who defected to the PNC included Vincent Teekah, Harry Lall, Halim Majeed and Vic Puran.

But there is a small practical difficulty with political crossovers that nobody discusses openly because it ruins the celebration.  There is a perception that these new arrivals must be treated well. They must be accommodated and, preferably, air-conditioned accommodation. The PPPC knows the crossover must be rewarded extravagantly so others observing from the opposition benches begin entertaining dangerous thoughts. Every public appointment now carries a hidden message: “See? There is life after defection.”

And this is where the cruel geometry of defections enters politics. Because every political system has only so many chairs. When a new man is invited to sit at the table, somebody else must suddenly discover the virtues of standing.

For every smiling newcomer welcomed at Freedom House or State House, there is an old party loyalist quietly being shifted sideways. Somewhere, at this very moment, a faithful party worker who spent thirty years distributing pamphlets in the rain is watching a former political enemy receive an appointment and wondering whether loyalty was perhaps an administrative error.

One man complained that for more than 30 years, he was in the political trenches. He was beaten. He made sacrifices. He stood up for the party. And yet in those thirty years he failed at every Congress to be elected to the PPPC’s Central Committee. Imagine how he felt when he saw newcomers achieve what he so desperately craved.

Imagine spending decades defending your party at rum shops, family quarrels, minibus arguments and Facebook comment sections only to watch someone who yesterday called your leaders incompetent suddenly emerge to take the place the place of you. The poor loyalist must clap while internally suffering a small stroke.

Naturally this creates resentment and political indigestion. Because the crossover phenomenon exposes a painful truth about politics: parties often value converts more than believers. Converts are trophies. They are proof of conquest. Nobody erects monuments to the loyal. Loyalty is expected.

The irony, however, is delicious. A party can become so busy recruiting converts that it risks demoralising the loyalists in its midst. Because every crossover inevitably sends a message not only to the opposition but also to loyal supporters: move aside, somebody more politically useful has arrived.

And that, unfortunately, is the law of political physics. If new bodies enter the orbit, something else must be displaced.

Even in politics, gravity is undefeated.

(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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• Clapping, Guyanese politics, national interest, Peeping Tom, small stroke

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