No one was unduly surprised to pick up the newspaper on Monday morning and discover that Mr Aubrey Norton had won the PNCR leadership contest by a landslide. The two other contenders for the post had little to recommend themselves to the voters, albeit for somewhat different reasons. Dr Richard Van West-Charles had lived outside this country for a very long time, and since his return had failed to reconnect with the grass roots of the party. The fact that he was the son-in-law of Forbes Burnham meant very little to a generation many of whom had not even been born at the time that President died.
Mr Joe Harmon’s problem was of a different order. He has been, of course, a distinctly uninspiring and incompetent Leader of the Opposition, and his serious shortcomings in the Ministry of the Presidency would not have escaped the attention of the PNCR membership either. But the main hurdle he would not have been able to overcome was his connection to former Leader David Granger, who has brought the party to the lowest point in its history, and who is unpopular with the rank and file. Mr Harmon was Mr Granger’s choice for leader, and he had tried to manipulate the party in that direction by leaving a cadre of the most senior members off the parliamentary list, including Chairman Volda Lawrence and Mr Norton.
In his address to Congress via video-link prior to the vote, Mr Granger called for unity in the party, which he claimed had been afflicted by “factionalism” almost since its inception. The party had a sad record of revolt,” he said, and “Congress’ task, in this decade, is to sustain solidarity by knitting groups together, not splitting them apart; by building up, not breaking down; by multiplying membership – not dividing and subtracting – thereby promoting public trust in the Party.” Schisms and factionalism should be suppressed, he said, for the common good.
While it was presumably an oblique reference to his critics, it also reflected the less than democratic spirit with which he is associated. At a practical level too, it is an approach which will hardly multiply membership.
It might be observed as well that splits in parties are commonplace and that the PPP too is not immune to them. How damaging they are depends on the circumstances. In this instance some of Mr Granger’s problems within the PNCR arose as a consequence of his predisposition to run the party as a “one-man show”, to use the words of certain Central Executive Committee members in July, not to any obsession on the part of his critics to put personality before party, as he maintained. More important, however, his attempt to stress divisions and place them in a not-too-accurate historical context is to ignore the moral nature of the problem he has created for his party.
For more than two decades after 1968, the question of how the PNC could be brought within the democratic framework appeared to find no answer. Eventually, however, the initial leap in that direction was taken in 1992, when Desmond Hoyte agreed to a free and fair election. By 2011 it was more than clear that the PPP could no longer command an overall majority on the basis of its own constituency, and that the PNC could aspire to office once it went into coalition, something one would have thought it had learned the first time around in 1964. The 2015 election appeared to finally bring the party into the democratic fold, but that was not to last.
First before leaving office its agents attempted to rig the outcome in the crudest and most public fashion, and then in opposition it still will not accept the legitimate result of the 2020 poll. The attempted fraud and refusal to accept reality has lost the party any vestige of moral standing it might have acquired as a consequence of finally appearing to become an entity committed to democratic norms. It was made worse by the fact that it misled its own constituents as to the nature of that reality. As it is the PNCR has reverted to an era more than half a century ago when it embarked on its long authoritarian phase. The country has passed it by, but more important, the world has passed it by, and it is left lurking in the shadows of the past, lacking the level of integrity necessary which would make its voice truly meaningful in this new era.
In a statement published on Saturday, Mr Carl Greenidge referred to the widespread dissatisfaction over the quality of representation of the PNCR constituency and the absence of a clear and authoritative party voice at times when leadership and principled stands were needed. “No viable and persuasive political Party can hold on to its constituency if its leadership is too timid to speak out against wrongs or to stand up for and hold positions which though morally correct are unpopular,” he said.
It was not the first time he had expressed his reservations about the direction of the party and the matter of its leadership, but this time he also took issue with how the Congress itself had been organised. “There is to be no analysis, no debates about the political situation and no report on the 2020 national elections, its outcome and no policy pronouncements,” he wrote. “It is only about the changing of the guard. Ironically, such a Congress should be quite consistent with the approach of the leadership of Mr Granger – no Party reforms, no resolutions, no or minimal debates, etc.” He commented that the PNCR had paid the price for its failure to insist on the conduct of a transparent and careful review of its performance in general and national elections.
And now there is Mr Norton who inherits a hollowed out political entity. His credentials in earlier times were more associated with street tactics than the inclusive governance he presently seems to be proclaiming, however, times and circumstances change, and so do the views of personalities in response to these. The public no less than the party membership will watch with interest to see how he navigates the many hurdles which stand in the way of restoring some level of credibility to the PNCR, repairing its organisational structure and preventing its further degeneration. The country needs a viable opposition, but it remains to be seen whether the party, as the lead member of the coalition, will be able to function adequately in that role, given what has been destroyed. Rebuilding trust will take time as well as wisdom on the part of those who lead it.
There was a glimmer of hope in the address Mr Norton gave Wednesday at Seven Ponds in commemoration of Desmond Hoyte’s 19th death anniversary, when he said that Hoyte did not only have economic successes but recognised the need for institutions which were independent of political control. In respect of the nation’s oil wealth he said the party would impress on society the “need for new governance mechanisms to ensure the people of Guyana benefit from our national resources”.
These are eminently defensible stances, but before he gets around to filling in the details the new Leader will first have to persuade the membership to accept the 2020 poll result even though he himself had earlier been vocal during the recount in his denunciations of supposed discrepancies. If he does not, there will be no moving forward in a psychic sense, and however commendable the positions the party puts forward, they will not be taken seriously. Mr Norton wants his party to be an inclusive one, but to win any supporters outside the core constituency, it will have to do some inner healing first. Honour and trust cannot be founded on deception.
After this newspaper asked him whether he would recognise President Irfaan Ali and would seek an audience with him, he responded that he would not want to comment on that at this moment. He did, however, go on to say that he would meet with the Central Executive Committee and when they made a decision, that would guide him in the direction which was needed. Hopefully when that committee does meet it will take on board Mr Greenidge’s comments on having a transparent and careful review of the party’s performance in general and national elections – and that in its larger sense.
Leaving these issues aside, the Leader will have certain practical matters to confront given that the PNCR is in Parliament as part of a coalition, albeit the largest part. Mr Granger is the Representative of the List which names the members to sit in the House of Assembly, while Mr Harmon is the Leader of the Opposition. All of that will have to be dealt with before Mr Norton can exercise the kind of authority and leverage his predecessor had.
“Change is arduous and will not occur by chance,” the outgoing Leader said to Congress on Sunday. “People who cannot change their attitudes and conduct will never change anything.” That, at least, he was right about.
