Robert Corbin: one of PNC’s most consequential leaders

Dec 20, 2024 Letters

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Dear Editor

Biographer Ron Chernow once disclosed that he decided to write a book about the man on the United States ten dollar bill to give Mr. Alexander Hamilton his just deserts. He said “He seemed to be fading into obscurity….to be regarded as a second string founding father.”

During a television interview, Lin-Manuel Miranda admitted that the very book motivated him to research and write, over a seven-year period, the transformative musical ‘Hamilton.’

It is in this context that I have chosen to highlight some aspects about a living Guyanese political legend who, though not of the stature of “founding father”, could go down in the history of the Peoples National Congress (PNC) as one of its most consequential leaders. I say this because his strategic, unselfish action resulted in his party leading a coalition to a one seat majority in the National Assembly in 2011 and a one seat majority in government, though short lived, in 2015.

He is a pragmatic politician, a master at reading the landscape, who altruistically put party and country first by turning his back on the perks associated with the Office of leader of the opposition. This could be considered akin to a singular role in enabling his successor to achieve the coveted high office that alluded him

At a young age, Robert Herman Orlando Corbin, fondly called Brezhnev by his compatriots, was elected General Secretary (GS) of the Young Socialist Movement (YSM), youth arm of the governing Peoples National Congress (PNC). He became an elected Member of Parliament (M.P) from August 1973 to October 1997 and from 2001 to 2011. He held several ministerial portfolios, the highest rank being Deputy Prime Minister from 1985 to 1992. In 2000 he was elected PNC Chairman (I would expand on this aspect a bit later). Following the death of President Desmond Hoyte in February 2003 he ascended to the position of Leader of the Party and suffered a resounding loss as presidential candidate at the 2006 National and Regional Election.

But while the buck stopped with the leader, the fact of the matter is that Corbin was dealt a bad hand and given a porous bucket to fetch water in large part, due to some self-defeating actions by his predecessor who served as Executive President and would have had favours to call in; yet was beaten thrice in National and Regional elections.

On assuming the Presidency and party leadership in 1985, Hoyte, an economic reformer who liberalised the economy, opened the door to private media, private education and in general, promoted the private sector as the engine of economic growth as part of a negotiated Paris Club and International Monetary Fund (IMF) prescribed Economic Recovery program. On the flip side, he simultaneously, diminished the national significance of his political party in relation to the government, and as a consequence, the party structure tapered in size and influence. Grassroots’ cells dismantled, and seasoned political organizers were shunted off to overseas missions or put to pasture. In fact, one minister, a respected political type who successfully managed a number of different portfolios from his youth, only learnt of his removal from office while listening to the radio on his way home.

By the time the overdue elections were held in 1992, President Desmond Hoyte, with a weakened party institution resorted to Committees for the Re-election of the President (CREEPS), a Nixon era United States political campaign model which comprised mainly of business person, as his major fund raising mobilising election strategy.

Dr. Cheddi Jagan meanwhile, with his party structure firmly rooted and growing, was successful in engaging lobbyists to find favour with influential American policy makers. Hoyte underestimated Jagan’s staying power. He over relied on the communism bogeyman strategy to the degree that during their presidential debate he demanded of Jagan “Are you still a communist? You must answer the question” the latter calmly retorted “do you still beat your wife?” By that time internationally, the Berlin wall was taken down in 1989, and because of Glasnost and Perestroika, communism was making a steady decline throughout Eastern Europe and some Republics that were part of the USSR. The iron curtain was less opaque. Let’s also remember that before August 1985, the governing and opposition parties were engaged in unity talks which Hoyte discontinued. When Corbin assumed leadership of the PNC in 2002, the governing party between 1997 and 2011 had aggressively instituted several policies and actions that expanded their sphere of influence, and also effectively stifled opportunities for the opposition to grow.

 

They amassed financial resources to expand their war chest, nurtured and formed a strong alliance with the private sector and private sector umbrella organisations, made remarkable inroads in the territory of organised labour to the extent that they wrestled control of the Guyana Labour Union (GLU) and engineered the formation of a powerful rival umbrella Trade Union body. Ironically, that body, The Federation of Trade Union Organisations (FITUG) was headed by the very person that ousted Corbin as leader of the GLU, the Trade Union of H.N. Critchlow, and L.F.S Burnham.

A national election is a numbers game. The governing Party methodically chipped away at almost every existing support and strategic building block which had any potential of propping up the PNC. By the time Corbin took the helm of the PNC, the PPP had aggressively dug in, consolidated and expanded their support base into almost every available social, economic and cultural people centred organisation as well as some sections of the religious community. In other words, the governing party fine-tuned its prowess as a well-oiled election machine. Those were some of the daunting hurdles that challenged Corbin as a political Leader and leader of the Opposition along with having inherited a weakened party structure that continued downhill. Corbin also faced internal challenges. Like Mayor Robert Williams, he was exposed to bias from some members the African middle class; Those who firmly believed that leadership should only be bestowed on persons of a certain pedigree, lettered, influential family name, having attended one of the four top secondary schools (especially Queens College), and/or having resided north of Brickdam. I see history repeating itself today.

Corbin tried to maintain a healthy relationship with the private sector. When the Guyana Manufacturers Association (GMA) under Ramesh Dookhoo decided to engage the main political parties to ease growing ethnic tension, he promptly agreed and participated in the dialogue.

Editor, permit me to briefly state something worthy of note that is a uniquely positive trait of Corbin’s character. Before doing so, I wish to acknowledge that he was not a paragon of virtue throughout his political career. He was tainted by a scandal of which he had his day in court and was exonerated.

At the Party Congress in 2000 it was the day to hold elections for office bearers. Corbin, was at the time reading law (alongside his daughter) and was therefore a little less active in person in party affairs. He was however playing a key role in managing the congress, the highest forum of the Party.

It was understood and acknowledged in some quarters that a slate headed by the brilliant and dedicated Winston Murray for Party Chairman would be elected as office bearers. The line-up also comprised persons from the ‘Reform,’ ‘non-traditional’ subset of Party leaders. But something happened that morning that nearly sounded Corbin’s political death knell. The incident undermined his stature and credibility; a damning, self-inflicted, unkind cut, initiated by someone else for which but he was duty bound to carry out. The fallout was very seismic.  By the time he assumed the position of Party leader in 2002, many of those reform / non-traditional activists gave lukewarm support. Some continued to serve in the National Assembly or returned to the party from whence they migrated. Despite being roundly condemned, maligned and accused of even harbouring racial tendencies contrary to the ethics of the party, Corbin took the criticism without retort. A disciplined cadre, he chose not to invoke the popular Shaggy line “it wasn’t (all) me”.

And so editor, some two decades before a long serving Caribbean head of state lectured a colleague “(he) should learn to take his licks like a man,” RHO Corbin demonstrated this admirable leadership character trait to this day.

Unfazed and undaunted, Corbin having given up the leadership to a person with a significant following (estimated almost the equivalent of one parliamentary seat,) operated behind the scenes and engineered the entry of big tent politics on the political landscape. A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) was formed in 2011. The party won 26 of the 65 seats in the National Assembly. The Alliance For Change (AFC) won Seven. The Peoples Progressive Party having won 32 seats and formed the government with a one seat minority.

For the 2015 election, APNU formed a joint electoral list with the AFC. The combined result, thanks to the support of a large amount of young people, was thirty-three seats which gave the coalition the nod to form the government. In a functioning democracy, the pendulum could swing in favour of any contesting party. Results according conditions agreed must be acknowledged, recognised and facilitated without delay.

It was John Lyly who said “All is fair in love and war”

I prefer to say, “All is fair in love, war and politics.”

I wish everyone, a Merry Christmas, a happy Kwanza and a prosperous 2025.

Yours faithfully

Derrick Cummings

(Robert Corbin: one of PNC’s most consequential leaders)

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• “founding father”, General Secretary, Mr. Alexander Hamilton, Presidential Candidate, United States

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