Guerrilla warfare inside the PNC: Jagdeo saves Volda Lawrence

Oct 09, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – Joe Harmon and David Granger have suggested that the ruling PPP and the PNC open dialogue on inclusive governance. PPP leader, Bharrat Jagdeo, gave a realpolitik response. Jagdeo contends that he cannot accept dialogue with the PNC because it is questionable that Granger and Harmon are the recipients of majority wish in the PNC. He pointed to the dispute within the PNC with its chairman, Volda Lawrence, who is in fact the elected deputy to Granger and not Harmon.
Harmon told Jagdeo that what goes on inside the PNC is none of his business. Jagdeo persisted with his realpolitik position that an agenda with inclusive politics in it with Harmon and Granger could be a leadership ploy. Is Jagdeo’s strategy correct? The answer is yes for one central reason. If the PNC’s leadership has factions vying for positions that could see the removal of both Granger and Harmon then the inclusive agenda could put Lawrence at a disadvantage.
The anti-Lawrence faction could claim plaudits from PNC constituencies putting them in an advantageous position for when the warfare heats up. One could go back to the competition for leadership between Granger, Faith Harding and Carl Greenidge in 2010 during Robert Corbin’s captaincy of the PNC.
Corbin was promoting books that Granger wrote and highlighting other things about Granger. Harding took umbrage at Corbin’s attitude because she said it puts Granger in the limelight that could influence the way delegates would vote. Because of those actions by Corbin and because Granger beat his nearest rival, Carl Greenidge, who lived 20 years out of the country after 1992 by 12 votes, Harding went to her grave contending that the 2010 leadership contest was rigged in favour of Granger.
Jagdeo is not a silly leader. Obviously, he knew how Granger clinched his apex position in 2010 and he probably feels Granger is trying a thing. If Jagdeo had swallowed the bait, Lawrence would have been devoured. Jagdeo’s posits that a PNC leadership contest is coming anyway and any inclusive pathway should wait until a definitive leader of the PNC emerges.
Lawrence’s demotion as Opposition Leader will surely have consequences. It has never happened before in Guyanese politics except in one circumstance – Desmond Hoyte’s expulsion of Hamilton Green. In the case of Jagdeo’s elevation over long-serving stalwarts, that is not similar to what happened to Green and Lawrence.
In the situation with Jagdeo, it wasn’t PPP leader Janet Jagan that ruled on her own that Jagdeo be made president. A number of stalwarts couldn’t agree among themselves so Jagdeo emerged as the consensus candidate. The confrontation between Green and Hoyte is identical with Granger and Lawrence. Granger may research the stratagems Hoyte used to get rid of Green. I believe the PNC in the coming months will see a replica of the Green/Hoyte war.
Green contended that Hoyte sold out Black people by agreeing to free and fair election through the pressure of a White American – Jimmy Carter. Green then went around Guyana bad-mouthing Hoyte with the intention of removing him. Hoyte used the colossal one-man structure of political parties in Guyana to expel Green.
Lawrence has used the same argument that Green invented against Hoyte. The explicit expression in the PNC and AFC was that they will not demit office despite sanctions and press the international community to secure exigent dialogue for inclusive governance. But on the last day of July, Pompeo called Granger, read the riot act to him, and Granger found himself facing the very book Lawrence had in her hand that Green threw at Hoyte. What is the difference between the fight between Green and Hoyte and Lawrence and Granger? Green has used extreme vocabularies over a period of time to denounce Hoyte. Lawrence has not done that.
Secondly, by the time Hoyte was ready to guillotine Green, the PNC that Green owned and controlled was gone. From 1986, Hoyte de-Burhamized the PNC so Green had lost all his crude, cruel underlings that did his dirty work for him. This is the opposite in the current PNC. The PNC under Granger is the same PNC that Lawrence had enormous influence in long before 2010. Granger does not have the reach in the totality of PNC delegates to call a leadership confabulation and oust Lawrence. On the contrary, if the leadership meeting is called and if it is free and fair, Lawrence is going to beat any PNC big-wig that challenges her including Granger and Harmon. At the moment, guerrilla warfare is spreading inside the PNC and Lawrence has escaped some snipers on the rooftop because Jagdeo saved her. She lives to fight another day.

(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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