I have no interest in the PNC contest but Aubrey Norton did this

Nov 18, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – My studies of Guyanese politics have led me to the conclusion that the PNC needs someone from outside the circle of the past, someone not part of all the things that the PNC were up to for the past 65 years.
Having said that, I have no interest in who becomes the leader of the PNC. In the flames of the leadership contest that has engulfed the PNC, political analysts in any country will make in-depth assessments of all the competitors. This is what political analysts do. But I’m afraid I will pass on this one.

For me the PNC has misused its most golden opportunities to reconfigure and purify the flawed landscape of Guyana. In 1964, it threw it away by the insane intoxication of power under Burnham. Guyana was saved from social extinction when Burnham died.

The next occasion was 2015 when it took its place among civilised parties in the democratic world. It won the election. Here was the second occasion in which power could have been used to serve humanity in Guyana. The PPP lost two elections and we have to give Jack his jacket; it did not try to burn down Guyana. It endured its losses. After 2015, the PPP rallied its troops and waited for March 2020.

If the PNC had financially compensated laid off sugar workers, giving them vast acres of lands to earn a living, accepted one of the 18 names Mr. Jagdeo offered for the chairmanship of GECOM, and held elections three months after the no-confidence vote, it would have been a tight race in March 2020. The PNC was not prepared to take its place among civilised political parties of the world. It tried to rig the 2020 election – the only thing about politics it understands. Against this backdrop I have no interest in analysing the contestants any further than the few columns I recently did. I don’t think I can count on none of the three contenders to concede an election defeat in the future.

Volda Lawrence is not contesting but she is of the same cloth.
Here is a piece of memoir that if I should write my memoir, I would include it. The only person who spoke to me after the 2015 victory of APNU+AFC about serving in the post-2015 dispensation was Aubrey Norton. He told me the leaders of both APNU+AFC should engage me. He offered to set up a meeting.
The next year, I received a call from Norton in which he said, “I would like you to be at my 60th birthday party.” I was hesitant in going. I was a virulent critic of the APNU+AFC government. I know all the PNC bigwigs would have been there. It turned out I had a big argument with David Patterson and left.

I mention this because from 2015 onwards, no other leader from any party in the APNU conglomeration or the AFC ever had even a five minutes talk with me as to how I could contribute to the future shape of Guyana. The paragraphs below are what I would include if I was to write my memoir. In 2016, I was waiting at the security hut for clearance to enter the Ministry of Public Security to see my friend, Leonard Craig. The Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan, as he was about to walk up the steps, saw me and said quite formally without any expression on his face, “You getting through?” Mr. Ramjattan’s expression that morning made it clear to me he was not interested in chatting with me.
In 2017, I had dinner at New Thriving with one of the biggest names in the AFC who is from the diaspora, Ronald Alert. What Alert told me cannot be repeated unless he gives me permission and gives the public his word that he will stand by the quote. From that conversation on the APNU+AFC’s perception of me, I knew their leaders would betray the Guyanese people. From that night at New Thriving, I knew the APNU+AFC were the wrong leaders for Guyana.
The reader will obviously ask, why write about this and not on the pleasant encounters with APNU+AFC leaders. There were no such encounters, except one.

Joseph Harmon never returned my calls after 2015. I did not receive a response for two texts I had sent to Finance Minister, Winston Jordan on my complaints against the GRA. There was one exceptional episode – Minister Ronald Bulkan. I knew him long before 2015. I went to him for three house lots for people I promised to help when I was on the campaign trail in 2015. I did not go to the then Minister of Communities, Keith Scott. I went to Ronald and he was the perfect gentleman.
(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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