Changing the topping does not alter the crust

Oct 30, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – The PNC/R is like a pizza. You can change the ‘toppings’ all you wish, it will not alter the crust.
The PNC has tried all manner of ‘toppings’. It changed its names to PNC/R, then PNCR IG and now it is PNC/R. It tried to create a poster boy with a fresh image as part of the party’s rebranding, and it even established a lopsided partnership which it dominates and calls the APNU.
At one time, the party even went as far as initiating a system of caucuses to elect its Presidential candidate. It then turned the entire exercise into a fiasco when accusations swirled about one candidate being favoured by the existing leadership, and when a gunshot rang out at Congress Place during the counting of the ballots.
The PNC/R can chop and change its leadership all it wishes. Unless the party can become democratic in and out of government, it will never be seen other than as a retrograde force in Guyanese politics.
Changes to the leadership of the party as is now likely in December will not change the character of the PNC/R. Nor is that democratisation process likely to evolve. Following its booting out of office in 1992, after a 28-year authoritarian reign, the PNC/R had 23 years to become a party which respected and observed democratic norms.
Those who felt that the PNC/R had made that democratic transition and therefore could be trusted to accept the rules of democratic elections had their fears dashed in March 2020 when the PNC/R stood and did nothing to prevent the rigging of the elections in order to install it with a fraudulent majority. The PNC/R showed then that it was willing to resurrect its sordid past of rigged elections in order to continue in office.
But the writing was on the wall long before March 2020. The smoke signals should have forewarned Guyanese that the worst was near. The 2015 – 2020 APNU administration had begun to show unconstitutional conduct and the hogging of political power. There were a series of moves which led to frustrations over constitutional processes. First, there was the rejection of a series of lists for the appointment of the Chairperson of GECOM. Then there was the arbitrary appointment of a Chairperson without the consent of the Leader of the Opposition, an appointment which had to be overturned at the Caribbean Court of Justice. Then there were the legal shenanigans over the failure to comply with the no-confidence motion of December 2018. Anyone familiar with how democratic regimes morphed into authoritarian regimes would have been worried by these developments.
But there were also signs that the PNC/R’s main coalition partner was being shunted aside. The AFC would have been forced to accept a lower share of parliamentary seats had the APNU+AFC coalition won the 2020 elections and there were concerns as to whether, despite an agreement to this effect, the AFC would have commandeered the Prime Ministerial post in the event of an APNU+AFC victory. One Working People’s Alliance (WPA) leader had complained bitterly about the lack of consultations within the APNU, and at one stage had even demanded that the Coalition apologise to its supporters for its mistakes.
All of these and more led to the inescapable conclusion that the PNC/R was not going to be a democratic regime. All its remaking and rebranding and its five years in office in a Coalition had failed to transform the PNC/R.
So why does anyone now want to believe that a mere change in the leadership will mark a new era in the PNC/R. The party has not changed its stripes. It is the same old party which sent Guyana down the path of ruination.
The PNC/R has not proven itself capable to adapting to a democratic framework. And it is not likely to be entrusted with the mandate to administer the affairs of Guyana for a long, long time.
So, what is all the fuss about the forthcoming leadership in the proposed party’s Congress in December 2021. The PNC/R is not yet ready for a democratic transformation. It has never been able to and cannot operate within a democratic framework.
Changing the leaders or renewing the mandate of the existing leaders will not make much of a difference. That is akin to changing the toppings without altering the crust.

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