Georgetown, Guyana – September 10, 2025 – Executive Member of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Cathy Hughes, has admitted that the 2025 General Elections were among the toughest battles in the party’s nearly 20-year history. Speaking candidly to Nightly News, Hughes described the campaign as a storm that tested the very survival of the AFC, but one that also revealed the shifting tides of Guyana’s politics.
Hughes noted that the AFC, once hailed as the third force in Guyana’s political arena, faced an uphill battle this year. The rise of the newly formed WIN party, led by now Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed, disrupted the traditional two-party contest and left both the AFC and the PNC/APNU reeling. “It was a very difficult election for us,” Hughes admitted. “The political landscape has changed. The way we engage, the way voters see politics; it’s drastically different now.”
According to Hughes, one of the biggest challenges was campaign financing. Smaller parties struggled to match the resources of the incumbent PPP/C, which, she argued, had access to state resources during campaigning. “Traversing the length and breadth of Guyana costs money,” she said. “And only the PPP and WIN were really able to play at that scale.” Her claims echo findings in the European Union’s election observer report, which flagged the misuse of state resources. Hughes insisted that without financial fairness, smaller parties like the AFC had little chance to fully reach voters.
The AFC also entered the 2025 campaign season bruised from an internal leadership contest. “It’s always a challenge to unify after such a heated contest,” Hughes reflected, noting that time was short for healing. On top of that, failed coalition talks with APNU cost both parties dearly. “People wanted that coalition,” Hughes said. “But the numbers show even together we might not have stopped WIN’s momentum.”
What stunned Hughes most was WIN’s ability to galvanize voters without presenting a strong policy platform. “For many weeks, Mr. Mohamed had no real articulated vision,” she said. “Yet he was able to pull in such a large number of votes. That says a lot about what voters are looking for right now.” Both the PNC/APNU and AFC saw their seats slashed, a sign, Hughes believes, of how disruptive this election truly was.
Despite the bruising defeat, Hughes reminded supporters that the AFC has been declared “dead” before. From holding six seats in Parliament to joining government in 2015, the party has repeatedly defied the odds. “When we first entered Parliament in 2011, we forced a minority government. In 2015, we went into government after the opposition had been locked out for two decades. We changed Guyana’s political history,” she said.
While many now count the AFC out, Hughes is determined to push back. “Yes, it was a hard year. Yes, we lost. But we’re not dead. We’ve always been the underdog, and we’re going to look inward and rebuild.”
