OPINION: Jagdeo’s PPP-PNC sensation; WIN’s raw realities

Last Updated on Friday, 23 October 2026, 22:28 by Writer

by GHK Lall

PPP General Secretary, Cde Bharrat Jagdeo, showed again that he is one step ahead of the crowd. A PPP-PNC Xmas card. A neat package of joy. Has the potential to give hope, generate inspiration. Maybe even heal some long-festering national wounds. On the surface, what Dr. Jagdeo laid on the table has much to recommend it. Condition: If it is the real deal. The question for Guyanese is three-pronged: 1) window-dressing, power-brokering, or salvaging ops? Two of the latter: one to bail out the PPP, the second to take the PNC off life support. Relative to window-dressing and power-brokering, I interpret Jagdeo using the PNC as a foil to thwart Mr. Mohamed and WIN. (And to save the PPP and PNC in the exercise).

Speaking positively, with generous grains of hope embedded, a PPP-PNC Alliance dilutes, if only temporarily, what has been a bone in the throat for Guyanese. The race factor. Dilutes not eradicates. For who in each side of that alliance will see, or will be whipped into a frenzy to stereotype, the other as a blood enemy? The people who make up the respective traditional bases. It will sure be an uneasy alliance, if it were to gain some legs. But what choice does the PNC have? It is on the rocks. Its prospects look grim, and are grim. The chief local referee, America, is unhappy (but still accepting) of the status quo. A PPP status quo with American interests being the main driver. Dr. Jagdeo extended his hand and, irony of ironies, it has a disguised palm branch. An olive one.

Frankly, it’s a no-brainer for the PNC. A free ride on Jagdeo’s coattails, plus, the circumventing and neutralizing of the Mohamed factor. Mr. Mohamed has made his inroads. He has made his presence and contributions felt at a grassroots level. But, unless there are radical shifts in his mindset, he is a one-wheel chariot (Pt II planned). Four years represent an eternity; the U.S. is determined to seize him and scan his head, and the people can be fickle. However, the helpful element is that the Guyanese people find themselves in the worst of places in the best of times (Pt III revealed). There’s a gamechanger brewing, probably in waiting.

Dr. Jagdeo knows all too well of the PPP’s atrocities with the people’s patrimony. National development priorities, Dr. Singh’s magnum opus, has left huge segments of what’s national in tatters and hungrier. What he sells as development has left human development at the bottom. And, the priorities of this man of book learning are what has pushed Guyanese to rummage for food as though this country has no abundance of natural resources. Most of all, the hungry man, the distressed mother, questions whether oil has been found. If so, then why so with their conditions?

Now think of this. One year after a resounding electoral victory, another record budget, and another cash grant, I believe that an entity as canny as the PPP would have conducted its own secret poll. What the people say? Where are they? How do they see the PPP? How does WIN feature? To repeat a prior assertion: Jagdeo does nothing for nothing. Or, anything that Politico Jagdeo does has something in it for him. He is not into charity or magnanimity. Callous one day, lavish 24 hours later. In sum, Jagdeo isn’t happy with where the PPP is, and there is the PNC on the ropes, and poised to go down, then out. The video and audio that Politico Jagdeo presented is revealing. Seen and heard before, and this is the plot.

Bharrat Jagdeo — whether in the role of president, vice president, or party general secretary — has assigned himself the role of the man with the white hat on the white horse. The program titled an Evening with Robert Corbin was the stage where he acted out that role, displayed his goods. His inspiration, his vision, to avoid extinction. The environment must be that crushing, with warning indicators flashing. He extended a hand, with a threat palmed. The PNC just got an offer it can’t refuse. Next up: danger man Azruddin Mohamed.