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This is the PNC for you

Aug 26, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I will not vote for the PNC. They say never say never in life, but unless the PNC transforms itself into a brand new entity with a brand new approach to life, I will never vote for it. I have been advantaged enough to see how unchanging many PNC big-wigs have been since that party lost power. It is my belief that such persons will not bring good governance to this land if they repossess state power.
I have seen many of the cream of the PNC hierarchy at UG. These are not people that I could be happy with as my leaders in government. Never eager to stand up for rights, displaying crass opportunism of the worst kind, conspiring for selfish reasons even at the expense of their own constituencies…no one could tell me that if you move these people from the halls of UG to the halls of government, they will turn from villain to hero.
It is not only at UG, the unchanging nature of the PNC leadership is visible but all over this land.
The Guyanese people should be honest with themselves and face the truths about many aspects of life in their nation, one of which is that many African Guyanese leaders and many top PNC cadres were willing puppets in the PPP’s conspiratorial stratagems to weaken the University of Guyana. My experience with PNC leaders at UG has taught me one brutal fact about the PNC – many of their kings are not ready to become born-again democrats.
A former friend of mine who is a PNC member and a former PNC election candidate went to two sitting PNC Parliamentarians to redress the wrong of the immediate expulsion of his daughter from Mae’s School for possession of a cell phone. An injunction should have been sought from the courts but the two MPs didn’t even write a letter in the press.
In no other country can you expel a student for not the use of a cell phone, but mere possession. I spoke to the Minister of Education, Shaik Baksh. He told me that the Ministry could do nothing about it. I didn’t believe him. That is unadulterated nonsense. Chief Education Officer Whyte-Nedd told me at the time that the Ministry has jurisdiction over the conduct of private schools. My only consolation was to do a column on this grave injustice. This cell phone fiasco with the two PNC MPs and Baksh demonstrates the twin nature of the PNC and PPP. These two parties are hopelessly trapped in the past.
I do agree that Guyana would be better off with a grand coalition that includes the PNC and the PPP. The reality is that they are both huge institutions grounded in the society of the territory of Guyana, but on their own, they have ruined and will continue to destroy this tragic land.
My preference is for a grand alliance without the PPP and PNC to take Guyana into the future. If the PPP wins next year, I honestly feel a boiling point will soon be reached that will push us over the precipice. If by some demographic twist of fate the PNC captures the presidency and Parliament, I don’t see a coruscating horizon emerging.
The PPP and PNC have genetic defects. It is the way the two parties evolved. Something is psychically wrong with an organization that glorifies and deifies men and women who have neatly laid the foundation of a nation’s destruction. But this is the dilemma of Guyana. The PNC’s hero is Burnham, the PPP’s Jagan.
Yet there is sufficient evidence to show that amidst the vision, nationalism and wisdom was the dictatorial instinct. Herein lies Guyana’s dilemma.
The PNC leaders are the children of Burnham. They understand his politics and accept it as gospel. So plots and Shakespearian dramas take the place of democracy.
In Jagan’s case, his protégés turned out to be more farcical than Burnham’s underlings. It is a monumental insult to history in general (not only in Guyana) to listen and read commentary that persuades PPP leaders to go back to Cheddi’s legacy.
What is Cheddi’s legacy? It is right in front of our eyes. Jagan nurtured and preserved what we now have in Robb Street and New Garden Street. Is Papa Cheddi so great that he should not accept culpability for the monsters he left us with?
The answer is that Papa Cheddi is alive and well in the bodies of those who currently steal the country’s money and give away the lands to their friends. Time for Guyana to be saved.

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