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When the diehards show their character

May 25, 2010 Editorial

It takes a long time to build an image but all that effort could be destroyed in a few moments. It is the same with countries or cities or towns or villages. Everything that would have attracted a lot of effort could disappear in a flash.
The founders of the main opposition party, the People’s National Congress, would have placed a lot of effort into its organisation. They would have worked hard with their followers and supporters to fashion the party into an election machine and later, to ensure that the machine was good enough to form a government.
Indeed, between 1955 and 1964 there was a lot of work that coincided with the change in electoral policies and practices. That party formed the government until 1992 when the People’s Progressive Party came to power. But even before then there was the view that the party was as strong as its leader. Forbes Burnham was a very charismatic leader so with him resided the strength of his party.
The pundits would argue that after his death the party lost kits verve although it has a most respectable leader in Desmond Hoyte. The general view is that the decline really set in when Hoyte died. There may be many reasons for this. Being in opposition and maintaining unity among the supporters becomes an arduous task.
There is no access to the public treasury to help support the party hopefuls. And above all, there is no public sector to accommodate those of the supporters whom the party may wish to reward. But despite this there are always the diehards, the people who would do anything for their party regardless of the cost. Most of these people are women.
And so it is with some horror that people viewed the situation in Congress Place over the weekend. There have never been serious challenges to the tenure of either Burnham or Hoyte when they were the leaders of the party. It is true that the party had a chance to create history by separating the political leadership from the head of state. Hamilton Green was challenging for the party leadership even as Desmond Hoyte was the President of Guyana. That issue was resolved on the first morning of the biennial congress in 1985.
Today the PPP can boast of being the first political party in Guyana separating party from state. Bharrat Jagdeo is the head of state while Donald Ramotar is the head of the party.
Robert Corbin became the first leader of the PNC to have to withstand strong challenges at every congress of the party. That he has survived is due to the diehards. These are people who will brook no change to the status quo; these are the people who will take to the streets at the behest of the party, the people who would loot and burn at the behest of the party. These are the people who, last weekend, bristled when those whom they perceived to be challengers to Corbin’s crown attended the General Council meeting.
People never learn. They tainted the image of the party when Vincent Alexander made it known that he was challenging for the leadership of the party and attended with his delegation. They heckled and booed the man who was once among the leadership of the party.
Over the weekend they did even worse. They got into fights. They behaved as street thugs. There are reports that there was hostility to anyone who appeared to be opposed to Robert Corbin as the leader of the party. There was the report that one woman, after abusing a man decided to spit on him. The gutter had invaded the party.
That the man hit her is inexcusable although one wonders whether there is a mechanism within the party to deal with the indiscipline exhibited by the woman. The leadership allowed things to reach the stage where a Member of Parliament grabbed a piece of wood and threatened murder. Her actions fan the gutter behaviour because a woman tries to pass a knife to her. Let there be murder to any challenge to the PNCR leadership.
Surely such behaviour has destroyed the image of the party. The founders must be turning in their graves.

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