The Congress Place challenge that failed

Aug 25, 2009 Editorial

For the past few weeks all eyes were on Congress Place, the headquarters of the main opposition party, the People’s National Congress. That party was holding its biennial congress, its highest forum and the scene of its elections for key crucial positions in the party.
For the fourth time there was a challenge for the leadership position, something that had not happened prior to 1985 after its founder, Forbes Burnham died.

The first challenge was against Desmond Hoyte, who acceded to that position when Burnham died in August that year on the eve of the biennial congress. Hamilton Green, now the Mayor of Georgetown, mounted that challenge and it took the negotiating skills of the late Ptolemy Reid to determine the issue. Dr Reid was at the time the Deputy Leader.
As ironic at it seems, the only position within the party that was not electable was that of General Secretary, right until 1973. Hamilton Green to this day remains the longest-serving General Secretary until Dr Reid was elected that year. There was to be no more challenge for the leadership of the party until a woman entered the race and challenged Hoyte. She failed miserably because the party was at the time unified behind Hoyte although he had lost the elections in 1992.

Years later, another challenge was mounted by Raphael Trotman, who is now the leader of the Alliance For Change. Again the incumbent was Desmond Hoyte. The year was 2001. Vincent Alexander mounted the first of the serious challenges against incumbent Robert Corbin in 2007 and the fallout saw many prominent people taking to the sidelines. This year was the most serious challenge within the party. The records would show that it failed but the charges of fraud and other malpractices would follow that party well into 2011, when the next general elections are due. Unless those elections are held after August 2011, the PNCR would hold yet another Congress.

What is worthy of examination are reported comments by Corbin in the run-up to the 2007 Congress. He had told reporters that this would have been his last congress. He had lost the 2006 elections, failed to complete any negotiations with President Bharrat Jagdeo and was presiding over a party that appeared to be rudderless. He recanted and this year told reporters that he was misquoted.
Corbin had also succeeded in losing the President General post within Guyana’s oldest labour union, the Guyana Labour Union, something that was unheard of. His star was waning and the people within his party were not blind to that fact.

There was the sight of him engaging in a tug of war with current president Carvil Duncan for the banner of the union during the May Day parade last year and the first split within union ranks, with Duncan taking one section to the rally organised by the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana—FITUG.
PNCR supporters were complaining of victimization and their leader was helpless to their cause. Those within the party hierarchy thought that Corbin should have called it a day. He was to move to the courts against one of his members, another thing that was unheard of in the history of the party. Since then, there are those who are of the view that Corbin is holding to the leadership position for the financial rewards such a position brings. It is salaried and recently, the benefits were increased manifold.

But the leadership of a political party in opposition is more than the individual gains; it is about helping to keep the government in line and at this time there seems to be a lot wrong. There are the contract debacles exposed by Kaieteur News, the questionable acquisition of multi-million-dollar property by low-salaried workers, the unexplained departures from the rules governing the Consolidated Fund and failure to get an investigation into recent allegations that emanated from the courts in the United States over drug dealings and mass murder of Guyanese.
Mr. Corbin might be the Leader of the Opposition but his inability to have the opposition perform in a meaningful manner would suggest that he should have stepped aside for someone else.

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