Dear Editor,
As PNCR Coordinator, Ms. Sandra Adams is a staff/employee of the Party. Staffing will fall under the General Secretary, who is the Party’s administrative head. The Leader is the party’s policy head. NCN is a media the opposition condemns and rightly denied funding because of its use as PPP/government propaganda machinery to attack and vilify opposition politicians and supporters.
Ms. Adams’ use of NCN could not have been without the directive or consent of the GS or Party Leader, making an already bad situation worse. This party’s management style/strategy of digging in to the point of using the media it condemns to vilify members/supporters is a chilling feeling. It tells about the length/depth the current leadership will go to silence or destroy dissent within the party.
In SN’s October 15, 2014 article, “Sandra Adams defends locking out of protesters from Granger meeting -says PNCR Central Executive to decide on way forward,” the coordinator said she called the police and asked that the gate be locked to protect Mr. Granger because “he has a very important position.”
Protest, by its very nature, disturbs the status quo at the given time because it is used as a medium to bring attention to issue (s) the status quo may not want to address, is not ready to address, or doing something protestors think are untoward. In August when Mr. Granger visited Queens, New York for a political meeting, he was greeted with protest.
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. Mr. Granger, as Leader of the Party, APNU and Opposition, refused to extend similar camaraderie and courtesy to fellow members and supporters of the PNCR, some of whom were APNU councillors. According to the leader, his reaction to their protest was that “we locked them out.” (“`You are not welcome here’ – disgruntled Lindeners tell Granger” KN 12/10/2014). Ms. Adams said she called the police (SN 15/20/2014). It cannot be understood how the party leadership has made use of two main institutions (NCN and police) its constituency sees as oppressive. Having done this to its people when elections come I am sure the party will not expect these voters to lock them out. The leadership would expect them to vote and campaign for them.
In the 2006 General and Regional Elections Ms. Adams, then PNCR Member of Parliament, was a major player in the Region 10 organisation. These elections were a watershed moment in PNCR/Guyana’s history because it was the first time the party was rejected in its significant stronghold. In 2006 the PNCR received 7369 voters under the One Guyana platform and lost a seat to the AFC, though GECOM awarded it to the PPP.
In 2011 Mr. Sharma Solomon was Region 10 campaign manager and included in the team were Aubrey Norton, Vanessa Kissoon, Leslie Gonsalves, et al. This team delivered 11, 358 votes and recaptured the seat lost in 2006.
The votes received in 2011 is an increase of 65 percent on the 2006 votes! Mr. Granger now sees these persons who delivered for him as pariahs, outsiders. Given that elections are ultimately about numbers, the Region 10 team should have been utilised to share their strategy with other party comrades, so it can be replicated and improve the party’s chances at future elections
And though the Party leadership can appoint staff for the regions, building relationships between the staff and regional leaders would necessitate appointments that have the involvement/support of the regional and party leaders. Imposition in politics doesn’t work, regardless of how much power/clout the leadership thinks it has.
It is also a tacky strategy that has no place in modern management. The leader has no justification, political or moral, to sideline and disrespect the people of Linden/Region 10 and their leaders. Mr. Granger would find it difficult to succeed politically, given the enforcer role Ms. Adams has assumed and her facetious comments on NCN, which are geared to front the alienation of a core group that has worked, delivered and built a constituency. What the party leadership has done on NCN is exacerbate a situation which makes Mr. Granger come across as petulant and inflexible.
The latter may not have been the intent but it succeeded in communicating that intent. Smart politics would have necessitated meeting with the disaffected supporters/members, Regional Chairman and councillors, resolving the issues and thereafter, together appear as a united front on the propaganda driven and anti-opposition NCN.
In the military, rank is status, saluted and looked up to. In politics you salute and respect the masses because they ultimately are the ones that give/withhold your rank and status; that “very important position” Ms. Adams claimed she wanted to protect, but wrongly did with police enforcement.
The NCN pretence is short-term respite for the problems that remain. However unpleasant or inconvenient they may be, Mr. Granger still has to deal with them.
Yours faithfully,
Minette Bacchus
