History has returned

Aug 22, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – The PNC/R is the luckiest political party in the world. No other party could have committed the sort of grievous sins which the PNC/R did and gotten away with it. But all things finally come to an end and the PNC/R faces its ultimate Waterloo.
As the PNC/R looks back on its tainted history and its now almost guaranteed permanent lockout from political office, it will rue three of its unholy sins: the attempt to benefit from the rigging of the 2020 elections, the perverse oil contract and its selfish and self-destructive desecration of Coalition politics.
The PNC/R will never recover from the attempt to rig the 2020 general and regional elections. Not only did that attempt expose the façade which had been cultivated about a more democratic PNC/R, but it has also raised questions as to whether the party should ever again be allowed to participate in the democratic process.
The PNC/R lacks the moral authority to preach to anyone, much less to Guyanese, about dictatorship, racism, corruption, abuse of power and democracy. Ironically, it was democracy which allowed the PNC/R to overcome the disadvantages which it faced as a result of Guyana’s ethnic arithmetic.
Without free and fair elections, the APNU+AFC would not have been able to win the 2015 elections. For the PNC/R to repay that favour by assaulting free and fair elections is an act of self-annihilation.
Without the AFC, or democracy, the PNC/R stood little chances of gaining the Presidency. Yet, in the most ungrateful of manner, the PNC/R began effectively dismantling Coalition politics after it got power.
The PNC/R totally overwhelmed and dominated its other political parties. The WPA complained early of being side-lined from decision making and about the failure of APNU to meet regularly. The AFC became the lackeys of the APNU. It showed no grit or fight against PNC/R domination of the government.
The ingratitude of the PNC/R was put on public display by the manner in which the PNC/R treated Dr. Rupert Roopnarine. He was removed as Minister of Education and given a token office within the Public Service Ministry. Yet this was the very man who was the architect of ‘Big Tent’ politics, the very model which helped the PNC/R assume office in 2015.
The AFC was never going to obtain the Prime Ministerial seat if the Coalition had won the 2020 elections. Khemraj Ramjattan was going to be soundly disappointed because his expectation of becoming Prime Minister would have shattered. It is believed that the PNC/R had long decided that it should hold both the Prime Ministerial and Presidential slots.
The new Cummingsburg Accord has never been made public. But it is believed that the AFC was forced to accept a lower share of parliamentary seats and to agree to bypass the right to assume the Presidency should anything happen to the incumbent PNC/R President.
Even though, the PNC/R has been booted from government, it has never shelved its domineering manner. So contemptuous was the PNC/R of smaller parties that there were reportedly discussions in its Central Committee for the PNC/R to scuttle the acceptance of cardboard parties into the APNU.
But perhaps the greatest sin which the PNC/R committed was the controversial signing of the Production Sharing Agreement. The APNU+AFC was in the strongest position it could have been to demand a fair deal. The oil companies had to negotiate a new agreement because the oil companies needed a production licence.
Just what happened and behind whose backs the oil agreement was signed is not yet clear. But in due course the chickens will come home to roost. The truth will be exposed. Those who were involved in the grand betrayal of Guyana will be made known.
History repeated itself between 2015 and 2020. In 1968, Burnham ditched the very man who had brought him to power: Peter D’Aguiar. In 1966, Burnham signed away Guyana’s future with the Geneva Agreement. Guyana’s future was again signed away in 2016 with the Production Sharing Agreement. In 1968, Burnham rigged the elections and the PNC continued the practice right through to 1985. Rigging came back in 2020 after 35 years.
The PNC/R cannot be redeemed. It is now discredited in the eyes of the international community and in the faces of the majority of Guyanese.
The PNC/R cannot be reformed. Those who are challenging for leadership in the hope of changing the course of the party are wasting their time. They should read CLR James’s “Beyond a Boundary” to understand the nature of middle class political parties and how difficult it will be for them to topple the existing leadership.
But it matters not who leads the PNC/R. Its past will haunt it for all eternity.

(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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