The PNC is 55 years old

Oct 12, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

No Guyanese intellectual trained in the social sciences, especially in subjects like political theory, ethnic studies, Third World civilization etc., could fail to comment on the attainment of 55 years of existence of the People’s National Congress (PNC). The PNC has played no small role in the evolution of modern Guyana for it to be ignored by the country’s scholars.
It is impossible to analyse the nature of the PNC in a newspaper column. The reason is obvious – it had been in power for 28 years and has been in the opposition for twenty years
Any mention of the PNC, whether at the dinner table, in the restaurant, rum shop, watering hole or at the cocktail circuit, brings into focus its role in Government under its enigmatic, controversial but nevertheless brilliant leader, Forbes Burnham. The consensus always emerges that he was authoritarian and that the PNC damaged Guyana during its rule.
But the PNC credibility eventually returns as the discussion continues; there is the inevitable comment – Burnham was bad, but look what we have today.
Any polemic on the nature of the PNC has to start from the binary of PNC in Government as against PPP in Government. If the PPP did not perform so terribly, one suspects that the PNC would have been demonized forever by a section of the Guyanese population that simply sees nothing positive about the 55 years of PNC’s existence.
It would be plain foolish to deny the autocratic performance of the PNC, especially from the late seventies until its founder died in 1985. But it would be equally stupid to reject the many good things and good people the 28 years of PNC rule produced. The PNC gave Guyana, Desmond Hoyte, the best governmental leader in the country’s history.
By comparison with the PPP’s 20 years of power, the PNC’s 28 years stand out as the better performer on many levels, but for which two areas are admirably conspicuous – administrative competence and individual morality.
I am going to be iconoclastic and say that I believe it is short-sighted to elevate Dr. Jagan as number one in Guyanese history as the politician that was good in terms of individual morality.
Space would not allow for an elaborate argument on what constitutes individual morality, but Eusi Kwayana and many leaders in the PNC could match Dr. Jagan in that realm.
We would never know if Dr. Jagan would have become similar to Burnham in autocratic style. Jagan’s presidency was only four years. My personal opinion is that Jagan would have become intolerant of many essential features of democracy, but he would have found a way for others to do his bidding so as to avoid getting the blame.
I know too much of Dr. Jagan to think otherwise. On the other hand, Burnham was confident enough to own up to his unpopular policies.
There are too many good policies and good people that the PNC Government of 28 years produced, but in the end people will remember the egregious behaviour of the PNC’s founder-leader, Forbes Burnham.
It still remains a mystery why Burnham wanted the 1980 monarchial constitution; while horseback riding, mocked of civil servants who were forced to do laborious tasks at Hope Estate in front of him; made National Service compulsory thereby making his opponents in the PPP look like virtual heroes in an epic battle for human rights.
But Burnham and many of his subordinates in the PNC were people who loved this country, cared about poor people, and wanted the best for Guyanese. The attitudes of many PNC leaders to pleas for help and assistance were outstanding. Burnham himself was intolerant of sexual and financial abuse of Guyanese power-wielders.
The abominable sins we see in the rule of today’s power-wielders, Burnham would have “hanged” them for such behaviour.
Where does the PNC go from here? It was not an elegant performance under Robert Corbin. The PNC lost its labour arm, the GLU, not to an independent outlook, but to the PPP. Its main constituencies have been virtually decimated by the years of PPP’s misrule.
But the PNC cannot be easily wished away. You cannot reduce 55 years of existence so easily into nothingness. At the moment, we are seeing some incompetent trends in the PNC’s strategy armoury. This comes at a time when there is a third political party, the AFC, that is expanding its influence.
The PNC’s best chance of surviving, as the great, historic institution that Guyanese know it to be, is by securing immediate constitutional reform. Hoping to win a national election all by itself should not be in its thinking at all.

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