The lamentation of Dr. Van West Charles is as old as Timbuktu

Apr 29, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – Do you know what several high-ranking executives of the AFC told me in the month of February 2020? They did not see the final agreement in the renegotiated Cummingburg Accord between the PNC and AFC.
It was the decent, moral, legal thing to do – take it to the executive. The final arrangement had to be decided upon by the executive committee (EC). After the document was inked, Joseph Harmon and Khemraj Ramjattan issued a joint statement informing PNC and AFC would-be voters that sections of the renewed covenant had to remain secret.
Joseph Harmon has gone from politics. The consensus among political pundits is that the AFC has long become dead meat. A majority of the 40 persons that made up the EC of the AFC in February have long gone from politics. But to this day, the central executive committee (CEC) of the PNC, the EC of the AFC, and a majority of the voters who voted for APNU+AFC in March 2020, do not know what is contained in those secret sections.
This has been the pattern of party politics in Guyana – a cabal of incestuous colleagues makes the decisions. Before we come to the exchange between the son-in-law of Forbes Burnham and the PNC leader, two more very pertinent examples are in order.
When a party comes into power, its broad leadership has to meet to decide who becomes ministers and hold other political offices. On the day of selecting its ministers after the 2015 election victory, that cabal of incestuous colleagues that I referred to above met at the AFC’s office to decide on ministerial portfolios. Four members of that cabal chose to offer a stranger to AFC’s politics, the position of the Minister of the Environment.
They called the lady on the phone there and then. Three AFC stalwarts who at the time were AFC executives – Trevor Williams, Michael Carrington and Rajendra Bissesar – were in the room and they were simply overlooked. There was widespread criticism after PNC leader David Granger left out some PNC stalwarts to go to parliament in September 2020. The accusation was that the PNC as a party was not consulted.
We come now to the accusation by Dr. Richard Van-West Charles against PNC leader, Aubrey Norton. Dr. Van-West Charles alleges that as advisor he is not privy to decisions made by the leader and that many policy enunciations are not tabled at meetings at the CEC and that the CEC hardly meets.
Mr. Norton has rejected the allegations. It comes down to which one to believe. The positions of both men cannot be reconciled. Here are the words of Dr. Van-West Charles: “ It appears that the role of the Central Executive Committee remains diminished since none of the important political matters which you have responded to in the public domain, have benefitted from the consultation and discussion critical to the guidance and strategic focus the Party urgently needs.”
Here is the response by Mr. Norton: “Mr. Van-West Charles has been pushing for me to engage the People’s Progressive Party through him and I made it clear to him that I cannot engage the People’s Progressive Party without a decision of the Central Executive.”
So Dr. Van-West Charles is saying that decisions are made without the CEC’s input. Mr. Norton is saying that for him to agree to any major decision it has to go to the CEC. I don’t know if any genius philosopher can reconcile those two positions. But Mr. Norton has become famous for a critique he made during his campaign to become PNC leader.
He told the nation if he wins, he will eradicate maximum leadership from the PNC. He went further to name Forbes Burnham as a maximum leader. That was a bold and courageous act for which Norton stands out as the only major figure in the PNC to have criticised the style of Burnham. I think for that he should be commended and he did it at a time when he was competing for the position of leader.
Whether we believe Dr. Van-West Charles or not, the Van-West Charles accusations will be used against Norton given Norton’s stated position that he rejects maximum leadership syndrome. But even if we accept Norton’s explanation that the CEC is not overlooked, the reality of party politics is that the influential party leader at the helm since the 1950s has made the major decisions and that trend has continued onto 2022.
Whenever I read about criticism about maximum leadership vibes in a political party, I always remember what Basil Williams once told me on the balcony of the High Court about the power of the leader in the PNC.
(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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