The PNC election: Part 1 – Eight changes to come

Dec 22, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – My experience tells me that people do not like to read a series of articles that is published on consecutive days. The PNC election results hold immense significance for understanding the future of politics in Guyana so it necessitates broad and extensive analysis, thus the assessments will have to go over into the New Year.
Here are some preliminary remarks before I analyse the victories and defeats. First, the era of Robert Corbin has come to an end. Mr. Corbin and Aubrey Norton were locked in bitter dispute that ended up in a court case. Once certain key players were in the PNC leadership, Corbin had a role to play and enacted that status. Those actors included: David Granger, Joseph Harmon, Volda Lawrence, Amna Ally and Oscar Clark. They are gone thus the fulcrum of Corbin has collapsed.
Secondly, David Granger will not have a presence even in the tall shadows of the PNC muchless in the hallways of PNCism. Mr. Granger has never been a fan of Norton and Norton was an open critic of Granger.
Norton made his views known on Granger’s intellectual ability to some of us at an informal gathering. Norton also is going to be wary of some of Granger’s underlings knowing that since the Granger era is over it would be presumptuous of them to want to confront him at executive meetings.
Thirdly, certain trade unionists are out. Norton has been around the PNC and Guyanese politics since dinosaurs roamed the earth and he is intelligent enough to know that there may be no permanent friends only permanent interests but even here interests do not necessarily have a monolithic structure. Norton will not trust certain trade unionists because he has files on them and those files will guide him to keep far from them.
Fourthly, certain lunatic fringe in the social media atmosphere is out. It is one thing as a party official to go on a madman’s Meta page and be part of his howling rage about running ministers off the roadways and accusing the ministers of stealing five billion American dollars.
It is a different thing when you are the leader of the second largest political party with 31 MPs and the eyes of Guyana are on you. Is it in your interest to be seen with this lunatic fringe? This is where Norton will know permanent interests can take different shapes.
Fifthly, Amna Ally is gone from the PNC. She had her last fling when she delivered her final address as General Secretary. Amna Ally has served the PNC faithfully but the dialectics keep changing Guyana and its politics. Her time has come. The era of Amna Ally is gone. Even if she was to be patronised, it is difficult to see how effective she will be in that role. And there will be younger people who can do that same function with deeper agility. Unlike many leaders in the PNC, Amna never had a constituency.
Sixthly, the Team Alexander scenario cannot be resurrected within the PNC. When Corbin became leader of the PNC, Vincent Alexander and Norton unleashed their intellectual strength against him. From day one, they did not accept Corbin. The climax of that intellectual contempt was a group named Team Alexander. This was a movement to oust Corbin.
The PNC became consumed with two big fights. Corbin versus Alexander and on a different occasion, Corbin versus Norton. Corbin defeated both of them. He guillotined Team Alexander’s strategist, James McAllister. Alexander then withdrew from the PNC. The battle between Norton and Corbin will take up too much space; suffice it to say their war ended up in the High Court.
Norton cannot face a resurgent movement similar to what bedeviled Corbin’s leadership for two reasons. The fertile soil that Team Alexander planted does not currently exist in the PNC’s executive branch. There is no such team in the fields to lit a spark. Secondly, Norton’s victory was not as controversial as Granger’s and his margin of votes will deter any nascent anti-Norton movement. To put it simply; the situation which allowed Alexander and Norton to initiate guerrilla warfare against Corbin is totally absent today.
Seventhly, Burnham will not be constantly eulogised by Norton. I have an old email exchange in an email string that took in dozens and dozens of persons and Norton was brave enough to acknowledge that Burnham had authoritarian traits. In his campaign for leader of the PNC he described Burmham’s rule as taking the shape of the maximum leader.
The PNC membership dislikes Granger, a professed emotional admirer of Burnham and Norton humiliated Burnham’s son-in-law in the congressional elections. Maybe Hamilton Green will beg Norton to rehabilitate Burnham.
(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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