No other party in the world is as suicidal as the PNC

May 13, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – The sociological fact is that there are numbers in the US that could cause Trump to win again in 2024. The Republican Party does not have to be sensitive about its racial preaching because it believes it can win the presidency again with a candidate (even Trump himself) that preaches the Trumpian ideology.
Guyana does not offer that political luxury to the PNC. Even with the then admired AFC as its partner in 2015, the PNC won by less than 5,000 votes. Even with the reins of government in its hands, the PNC lost in 2020 and by far more than 5,000 votes. This scenario indicates that the PNC does not have the numbers that the Republican Party in the US has.
The agenda for the future of the PNC is to shape its politics to dissolve whatever credibility stains it accumulated from March 2020. But it is not doing that. On the contrary, the PNC is expanding its bandwagon of insane demagoguery. It was in September last year that the PNC extended its journey of self-destruction.
Joe Harmon and David Granger went to Region Five and literally, virtually and grammatically incited African Guyanese to engage in retaliation for the mysterious murder of two African youths which, at the time, had no dimension of being politically motivated. And which now seems to have been drug-related.
One would have thought that should have been the end of it. But this didn’t happen. The PNC has no control over the WPA, David Hinds, Rickford Burke, Eusi Kwayana and a school of people who made race an obsession in their one-dimensional minds. People will not judge the PNC because Kwayana has reverted to his racist personality of Sydney King, he once possessed. People will not judge the PNC based on the racist tent that David Hinds lives in.
People will determine what the PNC is made of based on what the PNC does and says. And the PNC is doing and saying vile, sickening things that will harm its chances of survival as a major institution in Guyana. Amanza Walton-Desir has alienated large sections of the population but Harmon’s diatribes are inflammatory. If the PNC leadership cannot see that Harmon is wandering all over Guyana aimlessly preaching deadly and dangerous things then that leadership is doomed just as Harmon is.
Why should any voter re-elect Harmon and the PNC in 2025 given how Harmon feels about the courts? If the judge was an East Indian, although it is wrong for Harmon to condemn her decision in the election petition, his ranting could be viewed as contextually logical. Remember in philosophy something can be wrong yet logical.
Harmon could have gone to African Guyanese and sway them by saying an Indian judge was biased. It is wrong to do that but is it logical since he is seeking to influence his supporters who are Africans. But the judge is African Guyanese and Harmon used unsavoury grammar to describe the court decision. He will do that again when the Court of Appeal (CoA) rules against the PNC and the CCJ.
Why then should an electorate put into power, a man like Harmon whose signals are clear – he will not accept court decisions that are not in his favour. What we have here is the politics of self-destruction. Which voter is going to make a man the president when that person as head of government will not recognise court rulings against his government?
Harmon’s disgraceful attitude to the decision in the election petition will do untold damage to the PNC’s chances of retaining the amount of seats the PNC won in 2020. Normally rejection of a court decision is based on legal points the judge overlooked. The critic looks at angles the judge glossed over. The rejection then is law-based and evidence-based. Harmon described the ruling of the Chief Justice as politically based. He went on to add political fuel in his condemnation.
In three years’ time, there will be preparations for the 2025 election campaign. With further outbursts coming from Harmon after rulings from the CoA and CCJ go against the PNC, there is bound to be enormous damage to the electoral prospects of the PNC.
Right now, two men in Guyana – Joseph Harmon and Khemraj Ramjattan – are talking nonsense that never came out of the mouths of other politicians in recent memory. It doesn’t seem that anyone in their world can stop them. If they continue their toxic deluge, the opportunity is there for a third party to replace the PNC.

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