Dear Editor,
I am a longstanding member of the People’s National Congress, having joined the Young Socialist Movement (YSM) at the age of 15, and I was a delegate at the just concluded 18th Biennial Congress of our party. I have attended many congresses of our party since the 1980s and to my mind this 18th Congress was the most controversial congress ever held by the PNC and no one who attended this Congress can deny this fact.
From the very first day of Congress there were problems; there were many empty seats, not a few empty seats but over one hundred empty seats, and everyone was asking where are the delegates to fill those seats? There were delegates throwing hints at each other and criticizing each other for the colour they were wearing; people were accusing each other of being PPP; delegates were threatened; many were abused; chairs were pelted; and a gunshot was fired. People fell down, people ran away, and many delegates said nothing. Some delegates and staff members behaved as if they were still in the army, and yet still there were those who behaved as though the party was their birthright.
People were shouting at each other. I myself shouted at a few, and in the end the election was suspended for a time.
Now that the dust has settled and we have seen the wound, it is time to heal the wound. We must all participate in the healing process; no one should be excluded; we must reach out to each other and we must talk to each other. As members of this great party we must find solutions to our many problems; it is useless to deny that we have problems.
We need to be good listeners and we must learn quickly, we must learn from our mistakes and correct them to make our party stronger.
What was clear in our minds is that we are all PNC people and we utilize the freedom offered by our party to express ourselves, and we are willing to find a way to move forward and defeat our common enemy which is not ourselves, but the PPP regime.
The PPP cannot use the problems of our Congress against us because they have never had a democratic Congress. For us in the PNC we are one big family and we were having an argument to resolve our differences.
I am indeed confident that our party will heal itself as we always do. I wish to urge the leadership of the party to start the healing process by having an inclusive Central Executive Committee that must include Mr Aubrey Norton and Mr Sharma Solomon. Mr David Granger must travel to the mining town of Linden and talk with the party members in the community, and then he must address the people of Linden and give them every assurance that he is standing by their side.
The PNC has not fallen; it is now stronger than ever and together with our partners in the APNU we will continue the struggle to bring about change in our country and to deliver a good life for all.
Yours faithfully,
Clive Fredericks
