THE MOMENT FOR DECISIONS

Dec 10, 2011 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

When the dust finally settles, a decision will have to be made about the future of the PNCR. Right now the post elections demonstrations that are taking place in the streets are a distraction from the inevitable decisions that will have to be made.
Delaying those decisions can effect the transitional arrangements that ought to have already been in place. Those decisions will have to be confronted.
The main question concerns the future of the PNCR. Is the PNCR likely to disappear now that APNU has been created and seems destined to stay?
The PNCR was the main and only significant grouping in A Partnership for National Unity (APNU). So what happens now that the elections are over? Certainly APNU cannot disintegrate because it will be APNU and not the PNCR that will be represented in the National Assembly? As such, APNU will have at the minimum to maintain a secretariat in which the major shadow policy decisions will have to be made.
This does not of course mean that the constituent members of APNU will disappear or merge into APNU. The constituent members will have to continue to exist alongside of APNU and feed into that movement. For all intents and purposes the PNCR will still exist and will the Working Peoples Alliance and all the other marginal parties that constituted the grouping.
The main question is however what happens within the PNCR. The leader of the PNCR remains Mr. Robert Corbin whose strategy paid off and who must be credited with the vision of the partnership. Since he will not be a member of the National Assembly, what will happen is that the leader of the opposition is likely to be someone other than the leader of the PNCR, the first time that this has happened in the history of the party.
There is going to be a great deal of pressure applied by forces within the PNCR for Mr. Corbin to step aside and perhaps make way for Mr. Granger. After all, APNU under Mr. Granger did very well, surprising many by its ability to effectively galvanize the traditional support base of the PNCR.
A strong case therefore exists for Mr. Granger to assume the leadership of the PNCR. But how will this decision go down with the long-serving members of the PNCR many of whom may have seen Mr. Granger as simply the presidential candidate and not a future leader of the PNCR? `
The results of the elections show that Mr. Granger has nothing more to prove and it is therefore for the Congress of the PNCR to decide whether it will make him the leader of the PNCR.
The PNCR has to settle its leadership question since it may find itself in an awkward position within APNU if one person is its leader within the party proper and another its lead representative within APNU. That is an arrangement that is likely to lead to some friction.
Both Mr. Granger and Mr. Corbin have strong claims to the leadership but this situation is more likely to resolve itself by Mr. Corbin handing over the reins of power to his successor, and in the present scenario, it does seem as if Mr. Granger will be that person.
During the campaign APNU made it clear that it was not a political party or a simple coalition. It said that it was a movement. As such APNU cannot be dissolved if it is to be true to what it claimed to be. Its continued existence as a movement therefore depends on its formalizing a governing structure that would lead its representation within the National Assembly as well as dictate the future direction of the partnership.
There is no reason why the same governing structure that existed in the run-up to the elections cannot with some slight modifications be used. But room will have to be made for new partners to be added and for a whole process of consultations and discussions to be initiated.
As such, a significant investment in resources and time will be needed
APNU is therefore not likely to disappear and thus there will be a need for an investment of both finance and personnel within the movement so that it can become a stronger movement, widening its membership and appeal in the months ahead.
All of these issues are being sidetracked at the moment by the protests that are taking place. But what can be delayed cannot be indefinitely put off and within the next few weeks important decisions will have to be made both for APNU and the PNCR.

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THE MOMENT FOR DECISIONS

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