In the lead-up to Guyana’s milestone 60th anniversary of independence from British rule, a former senior leader of the country’s main opposition People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) has publicly criticized his own party for failing to finalize a commemorative event schedule months after the 2025 calendar turned over.
Winston Jordan, who served as finance minister in the previous PNCR-led coalition government, made the remarks during an interview with local outlet KAMSTV on Thursday, April 23, 2026. Jordan stressed that the PNCR had a unique obligation to organize early celebrations, given that the party’s founding leader, Forbes Burnham, was the head of government who formally guided Guyana to full sovereignty when it gained independence on May 26, 1966. By his count, the party should have had a full program of activities ready to go no later than December 31, 2025, with just weeks remaining before the major anniversary as of his statement.
“What are you waiting for, PNC? With only a couple of weeks left, you still haven’t even unveiled a full schedule of activities,” Jordan said. “Even if you are facing financial constraints, you should at the very least ensure that our Founder-Leader, Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham, is not written out of this anniversary celebration. We all know that the ruling People’s Progressive Civic (PPPC) will not mention his name if they can avoid it this 60th year.”
Jordan, who has been an outspoken public critic of both the current PPPC government and PNCR opposition leadership, questioned whether the party was passively waiting for the ruling administration to honor Burnham during the national commemorations, rather than taking initiative on its own.
“The moment of independence is a core part of this party’s legacy,” Jordan noted. He also recalled a unifying moment from 1966: while Cheddi Jagan — the iconic leader of the PPP and another towering figure in Guyana’s independence movement — did not join Burnham at the final London independence negotiations, he embraced Burnham on stage at Georgetown’s National Park on the eve of independence, laying a foundation of national unity that ought to be remembered.
Jordan added that low-cost, simple commemorative events are fully within the party’s reach, even with limited funding.
To contextualize this political debate: while Jagan is widely recognized as the earliest and most vocal advocate for Guyana’s separation from British colonial rule, historians widely document that the United Kingdom, pressured by the United States, altered Guyana’s electoral system ahead of the 1964 vote. The change from a first-past-the-post system, under which Jagan’s PPP had won previous elections, to proportional representation was explicitly designed to remove Jagan from power. U.S. officials pushed for the shift over concerns that Jagan’s communist leanings would lead an independent Guyana to align with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The new electoral system allowed the PNCR to form a coalition government with the United Force party, and the PNCR retained power through elections widely regarded as fraudulent until free democratic elections were restored in 1992, following the end of the Cold War.
As the ruling PPPC has not moved to center Burnham in official 60th anniversary planning, a new opposition party has stepped forward to launch its own months-long national commemoration. Earlier this week, We Invest In Nationhood (WIN) — a new opposition bloc that won 16 parliamentary seats in the 2025 general and regional elections — rolled out a six-week national campaign themed “Rooted in Identity – Rising in Destiny.”
In an official statement, WIN outlined that the initiative is designed to restore meaning, dignity, and national pride to the 60th independence observance by inviting all Guyanese citizens to engage with the country’s anti-colonial history, assess its current development trajectory, and collectively build a shared vision for the future. “Guyana’s independence is more than a date on the calendar; it is the culmination of sacrifice, resilience, and the enduring spirit of a people determined to define their own destiny,” the party said. “This initiative goes beyond superficial celebration to deliver a national program that fosters deeper public awareness, cross-community unity, and broad citizen participation across every region of the country.”
WIN’s campaign includes a range of accessible activities spanning oral history storytelling projects, civic education and national reflection sessions, public dialogues on national identity and the responsibilities of citizenship, cultural festivals showcasing the diversity of Guyanese traditions and creative work, and community service and development projects designed to mobilize citizen action across all sectors of society. The campaign will culminate during Independence Week with a series of official national observances and a large-scale cross-disciplinary production titled *The Dawn of a Nation: Guyana 60*, which will weave together theater, live music, cultural performance, and national reflection to trace Guyana’s journey from colonial struggle to sovereign statehood. “This landmark initiative will reignite a spirit of unity, purpose, and pride that will carry us forward as one people, one nation, with one shared destiny,” WIN added.