PNCR Leader David Granger yesterday defended the locking out of protesters at a Linden meeting last week Friday, while rejecting renewed criticisms that he was aloof.
“I am a people’s person. I may have a few critics… I’m not remote, I’m not stuck up… but don’t shout or wave placards when you come to meet me,” Granger said at a press conference.
There has been a simmering row between APNU/PNCR and a key section of the PNCR in Linden since 2012. The showdown between the two sides was evident at the Mackenzie High School last week Friday when the main gate to the school compound was ordered locked by PNCR regional coordinator Sandra Adams.
Most of those supporters, who were locked out carried placards that criticised the disrespectful manner in which some members of the PNCR in Linden feel that they are being treated by their party leader and its Central Executive. The protest has raised more questions about the party’s standing in one of its traditional main strongholds.
However, Granger said that the protestors were just a small faction who wanted to create unrest and deviate from standard operational procedures his party has always had in place when it comes to airing grievances.
He pointed out that he felt that the boisterous actions of the group would have disrupted the meeting because he saw their actions as premeditated.
“I am concerned about it… people were not invited to break up or obstruct the meeting. So I am concerned… I do not feel it is fair to those persons who wanted to listen to be shouted at or to have been prevented to coming from the meeting by other persons, it was a deliberate move, it was something that was contrived,” he said.
The protesters are supporters of Region 10 Chairman Sharma Solomon and APNU MP Vanessa Kissoon, both of whom have clashed recently with the leadership of the party over the fairness of the PNCR’s recent congress and other matters.
Former Deputy House Speaker and PNCR executive Clarissa Riehl earlier this year criticised Granger’s leadership, describing him as “an aloof leader who stands aside” when he should be more involved in the management of the party.
Granger also defended the actions of the Regional Coordinator for the PNCR and APNU in Region Ten and her subsequent chiding of the protesters on the state-owned National Communications Network (NCN), during an interview. The protesters are also opposed to Adams’ role in Linden.
In a broadcast on NCN Linden on Monday, Adams said that she wanted to give viewers a clear picture of what “exactly transpired on Friday 10th of October 2014.” She said the meeting was one of several that the party intends to hold around the country to enlighten people about local government, the need for local government elections and “inform residents of communities … like Linden, some issues that we are not able to be alerted on via television and so forth”.
She also apologised to those who were unable to attend the meeting but singled out a group in Linden that she said had become very disruptive to the party.
Granger said yesterday he saw the eleven-and-a-half-minutes-long interview done by Adams and he believed it was an accurate picture of the events.
“We feel she was a fit and proper person to make a statement on behalf of the PNCR about the events… she attempted to give a true and accurate position on what occurred on the night of October 10th at the Mackenzie High school,” he said.
A letter writer yesterday also made the comparison of how Guyanese protesters in New York were treated when the APNU leader was visiting recently. “The protestors carried placards and voiced their views. Mr. Granger walked into the protest, shook hands, smiled with the protestors and held discussions with them. The protestors, from their placards, were anti-APNU. The pictures and recounts of the event were carried by social and formal media. Lindeners in October were not this lucky,” the letter, written by Minette Bacchus, stated.
Granger yesterday said the difference in his response was because of the difference in attitudes of the protesting groups.
“The people in Richmond Hill they were not shouting, they were listening to what I was saying. They had there placards but they listened, they weren’t screaming, they listened… even shook my hands,” Granger posited.
He pointed out that over the past months he has been on several outreach exercises and has spoken personally to over 1,200 persons who never complained of his attitude.
One of APNU’s main mobilisers, Gordon Callender, was among those who were locked out of the meeting and in an invited comment he told Stabroek News that he knew personally that some of the operatives the opposition leader was listening to with respect to the current impasse between the Linden PNCR/APNU supporters and Congress Place, were operatives of the PPP.
“We know all of them,” Callendar said, “and we suspect that one of them from the Central Executive Committee, is the devil’s advocate for this confusion in Region Ten.”
Callender, who is an APNU councillor in the Linden municipality, pointed to Regional Democratic Council (RDC) members Leslie Gonsalves, Douglas Gittens, Mayfield Greene, Charles Sampson and his PNCR/APNU colleague on the Linden IMC, Fern McCoy, who were also locked out of the meeting. He said these people have been locked out because efforts are being made to keep out “the real die-hard PNC people after they disrespected us at Congress Place during the PNC Congress a few months ago.”
Sampson, who is an APNU councillor on both the RDC and the Linden IMC, brought it to Stabroek News’ attention the fact that he was locked out of the meeting. “I am supposed to be at a meeting here and I have turned up for this meeting,” Sampson said. “You know, I’m a councillor of the RDC and a councillor of the town council and l have been denied entry to the meeting. This meeting has been summoned by the leader of the opposition. I don’t know what is the agenda of the meeting but I turned up for the meeting and I have been denied entry. As a member of the PNCR, I am taking that very seriously.”
