Dear Editor,
Ms Lurlene Nestor’s call for People’s National Congress (PNC) Founder-Leader, Forbes Burnham, who was also Guyana’s first Executive President, to be equally honoured by the National Assembly as was late Independence Fighter and Democracy Liberator, Dr Cheddi Jagan shows that the PNC Reform stands a divided party under current leader, Robert Corbin. I am sure that Ms Nestor would have made known her views internally, but Mr Corbin failed to stridently articulate such a position in the National Assembly based on his draft alternative motion. It is clear that her voice is being ignored inside the party and she has chosen to speak out against the leader that she and the 22,999 other persons campaigned for at the last PNCR’s Biennial Congress.
Admittedly, I am using her utterance and failure of the PNCR leader in this specific instance to illustrate the direction-less path of the party under Mr Corbin. Here are but a few examples:
a) Mr Corbin failing to say categorically that he and his party would support the Alliance For Change (AFC) motion for Minister Kellawan Lall to be censured by the National Assembly
b) The PNCR not agitating for public goods like housing, water, electricity and house lots to be provided to the poor and dispossesed Guyanese, particularly its supporters, who feel abandoned
c) The PNCR not agitating for constitutionally entrenched power sharing/shared governance ahead of 2011 elections which I believe will be called in 2010, two years after new continuous registration would have been put in place
d) The resignation of Youth and Students Movement (YSM) executive members like Christopher Jones and the feeling of alienation by many YSM executive members who were virtually hand-picked by Mr Corbin and his allies so that he can hold on to manipulative political power in the party
e) The PNCR failing to take steps to forcibly break the radio monopoly
f) The widespread feeling by average traditional supporters that the PNCR has abandoned them, resulting in many traditional supporters shifting their loyalty to the Peoples Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) eg Foreshore Front (Plastic City) and environs on the West Bank of the Demerara River and Sophia
g) The contesting of the 2006 general elections under the guise of preserving ‘political space’ after repeatedly promising that ‘No verification, No election.’
h) In order to encourage his supporters not to rock the political boat, Mr Corbin has been telling PNC party groups and regional conferences across the country that marches and street-side meetings are no longer relevant and it is time for his supporters to find new ground in politics.
It is clear for all to see that Mr Corbin is content with the position of Opposition Leader. Ms Nestor and like-minds who want to throw blame at the Most Honourable Prime Minister Samuel Hinds and the PPP, it is time for you to consciously wipe your faces of the political cosmetics and public relations gimmicks, and make mammoth efforts to scrub your party of internal deficiencies rather than bringing them to the public domain, because the old adage says ‘charity begins at home and ends abroad.’
While Mr Corbin sells his supporters short, people are punishing, and the PNCR is doomed to dissolve into nothingness come the snap general elections of 2010.
Yours faithfully,
Mustapha Alphonso
