“Those comments would carry more weight if he had honoured his own promises when he had the chance,” said Thandi McAllister, referring to recent remarks by former President David Granger urging young voters to reject “empty promises.”
“Instead,” she added, “we were left watching a geriatric movement take shape.”
It was a sharp rebuke, one that underscored the disillusionment McAllister, a former executive member of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), said she experienced as a young voice in a party that campaigned on youth empowerment, but quickly turned its back on that promise once in office.
Speaking on the Starting Point podcast, McAllister didn’t hold back. Her critique of Granger was more than personal, it reflected what she described as a wider failure by the PNCR leadership to include young people in governance during their time in power.
According to her, the years following the 2015 election saw an abrupt shift away from the energy and activism that had helped carry the coalition to victory. Youth were visible during the campaign, she said, but largely invisible when decisions were being made.
“We recognised that there was this non-inclusion of our role in governance, and this is what we worked for,” McAllister explained. “The party campaigned on the inclusion of youth and on the importance of the youth vote and the youth voice.”
That shift left many, including herself, feeling sidelined. McAllister recalled intense advocacy by young members for deeper involvement, within the party structure and in national policy-making—but said those efforts were often met with silence.
“We were not being heard and enough was not being done,” she said. “At some point, we felt like we were pushing against a closed door.”
What stung more, she said, was that the exclusion wasn’t passive, it was systemic. Decisions were made in spaces that young people were not invited into, and the leadership, in her view, showed little interest in changing that dynamic.
“I don’t think the party did enough to retain the young, bright minds it had then,” she said bluntly.
McAllister’s critique of Granger is especially pointed given his recent public appeal to young voters to be wary of hollow political promises. In her view, his own track record in office undermines his message.
“It is that movement, in my most humble opinion, that has him where he is now, out of office, a former president, fighting for a voice,” she said. “Fighting to be heard, like we fought to be heard while he was at the helm.”
For McAllister, the experience led to a painful but necessary decision to leave the party she once believed in. But her story, she said, is far from unique. It’s a reflection of a pattern in politics where youth involvement is often reduced to a talking point, valuable during elections, but dispensable after.
“We gave it everything,” she said. “And in the end, we were left out of the process we helped build.”
