A docile PNC is an ineffective political opposition to the autocratically-inclined PPP regime

Dec 13, 2008 Letters

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Dear Editor,
If the PNC was not the main parliamentary opposition party in Guyana, I would openly encourage Guyanese to completely ignore its internal shenanigans featuring Messrs. Robert Corbin, Vincent Alexander and James McAllister.

And now that Georgetown Mayor Hamilton Green has offered to mediate what seems to be a mixture of personalities and issues in the PNC, I can only imagine how this can quickly evolve into a political circus. I find it difficult to envisage Mr. Green being allowed to come out looking like the savior in this political brouhaha.

But at a time when the Bharrat Jagdeo-led PPP regime needs some stout resistance against experimenting with authoritarianism and some growing pressure for failing to come up with a comprehensive economic plan beyond the present routine activities, the PNC has to either get its act together and perform as normal opposition parties do, or share the blame with the government for the current downward spiral of our state of affairs.

“In the nine years since President Jagdeo took over the presidency, Guyana continues to perform below its potential, even though PPP supporters love to talk up the various projects undertaken or still on the drawing board. Some of them even go so far as to constantly compare the government’s current performance to that of the PNC when it formed the government for 28 years. “

The PNC, on the other hand, has morphed from a vibrant political machine of the seventies and eighties into the docile and ineffective PPP of the seventies and eighties after failing with the immediate post-92 street demonstrations as leverage to get the PPP to concede power sharing.

In fact, the PNC has devolved to a disturbing level where it seems prepared to sit and wait on the PPP to offer shared governance, whereas the PPP is taking full advantage of the PNC’s lackluster posture to treat the government (all three branches) as party property and the citizens as dispensable subjects.

It is this failure by the PNC to behave like the responsible major parliamentary opposition it is supposed to be that has many of its supporters wondering if it is not time for a leadership change! Perhaps also sensing this among party members, as well as among outsiders, Team Alexander decided to mount a campaign aimed at displacing party leader, Mr. Robert Corbin.

Almost every observer thought that since the PNC was the party that gave the green light for the return of free and fair elections in 1992 that the party would be amenable to the concept of being allowed to work among its own members.

Had Team Corbin not blocked Team Alexander’s democratic rights, the PNC today may well have been stronger with fresh minds bringing fresh ideas as the party bid adieu to personality politics.

Instead of adding new blood with new ideas, the PNC now appears like a house divided against itself with the leader of the house being unable to keep his members or even try to add new members.

What’s worse is that just as the PPP was unable to harness the anger and frustration of Guyanese when the Burnham policies were at their worst for Guyanese, the PNC is now unable to harness the anger and frustration of Guyanese even as we watch glimpses of Burnhamism in the Jagdeo presidency.

It surprises no one that many PPP supporters and voters, who don’t want to see the PNC back in power, are angry and frustrated at the party that they keep voting for, and even though they don’t necessarily want a change of government, they would like to see the government change its strategy.

Can a reformed PNC that openly abandons its traditional embrace of African Guyanese as its support base and seeks out Guyanese of all races on the basis of ideas, take advantage of the collective anger and frustration now being vented by Guyanese of the two major races against the government?

There is way too much at stake here nationally for the PNC to have the second highest number of parliamentary representatives drawing down salaries and allowances at taxpayers’ expense and not provide a formidable political competition against the government’s abuses and incompetence.

It is not that I am diminishing or excusing the role of the AFC as the smaller parliamentary opposition, but the political culture recognizes the PNC as the PPP’s equal and that is why all eyes are on the PNC to deliver the goods.

Hopefully the AFC will continue to remain clean and clear of the type of politics that have defined the PPP and PNC and gain traction leading up to 2011, but if the behaviours of both the PPP and PNC (such as uniting to isolate the AFC) continue into 2011, it may be a tad too late for the AFC to make a marked difference.

That is why the PNC has to get its act together, even if this means cleaning house and getting a new leader with a new vision to inspire new additions to its membership roster.

If the PNC does not change its strategy or leadership, Guyanese have the right to assume there is a shared governance plan in the pipeline, which could make a Jagdeo-led PPP and Corbin-led PNC government the first elected dictatorship in the Caribbean, because if Guyanese vote race in 2011, who will vote for the party that will be known as the opposition party?
Emile Mervin

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