Granger will destroy the PNC before 2021 begins

Aug 25, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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The pattern in politics in any country is for the leader of a losing party to step down. There are of course exceptions. This occurs when the leader is an extraordinary asset to his/her party, has literally icon status in the party and in pronounced sections of the population and is generally seen as a candidate that can win again.
Many figures come to mind and the name Pierre Trudeau stands out. A larger than life personality in the Canadian Liberal Party, the hierarchy would never have contemplated moving Trudeau when he lost power knowing he could win again; and he did. Another example is from Nicaragua, it was unthinkable for anyone to suggest that Daniel Ortega should give up the leadership when he lost the election. Ortega was seen as the Sandinista Party and the party was seen as Ortega. He won again.
In the Caribbean, names like Eric Williams, Cheddi Jagan, Forbes Burnham, Eric Gairy, Errol Barrow, Vere Bird were iconic in their respective parties that no one would have conceived of competing against them after an electoral defeat. In Guyana, because of the way he transformed the country, Hoyte’s position as leader of the PNC was assured despite the 1992 defeat. After losing in 1997 and 2001, his headship was under tremendous pressure and maybe it was this kind of pressure that contributed to his heart attack in 2002.
After losing in 2010 and 2015, there was hardly any support for Donald Ramotar to remain at the helm of the PPP. In fact, because of two successive defeats, the PPP thought his role in the hierarchy should be brought to an end. In 2011, Granger failed to become the president. In 2015, he won the presidency by less than 5,000 votes.
In 2020, with Guyana set to take off as an oil economy, his margin of defeat increased to 15,000. It was only logical for Granger to give way. But he hasn’t and with an iron fist he rules the PNC. Enter Carl Greenidge. Greenidge in a volcanic emanation raises the issue of the fragility of the PNC. Granger prior to 2011 had no track record of service to the PNC and was hardly known in PNC circles. He lost two national elections and barely won another one, but Granger seems to have no opposition to him in the PNC’s hierarchy with the disturbing characteristic that he is doing self-destructive and autocratic things.
Here is an example of Granger’s hegemony. Greenidge said that the preferences for parliament were not a party decision but the leader made the choices and no discussion followed from the central executive. Then Greenidge’s next intonation was a goldmine for the researchers.
He observed that such a selection of parliamentary seats have never been done like that in the history of the PPP and PNC. And he is right. Neither Jagan or Burnham or Hoyte or Jagdeo ever presented a school of members going to parliament without input from the party’s leading figures who make up the executive.
How do you explain this enigma or caricature? The reason lies in the style of Granger. No one dared question Burnham but Burnham had this inflexible desire of reaching out because he always wanted to birth a second generation of leaders. Jagan simply could not control the impulses of his party’s hierarchy and while no one would have dared to reject his list, the nature of Jagan was to consult.
Hoyte was a different man after he became president and it is doubtful that he would have unilaterally imposed a list of MPs on the PNC. As for Jagdeo, he had his autocratic ways but there was no way the executive of the PPP would have tolerated Jagdeo presenting a list of his choices to them. There would have been serious confrontations.
This leaves Granger. He is by nature a military man and military people understand and embrace the culture of edicts. The world of politics where there are factions and by necessity the leader has to offer concessions and make compromises is a terrain Granger is not familiar with. Secondly, his understanding of power is Burnhamite but Granger has not even a modicum of the strategic capacity to think, manoeuvre and outsmart like Burnham. Burnham was dictatorial but was careful how he used his totalitarian instincts. Burnham was too cleaver to be wildly totalitarian. Granger is autocratic with large impulses of arrogance and impatience. But worse of all unlike Burnham, Hoyte, Jagan and Jagdeo, he lacks self-confidence so he falls back on one-man dictatorship. If not stopped, he will destroy the PNC before 2021 begins.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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