PNCR’S CRUCIAL LEADERSHIP CHOICE
President David Granger
President David Granger

-amid widening disunity Granger hopes to triumph

HAVING SECURED the leadership of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) by a slim majority of 15 votes at the party’s

17th biennial congress in 2011, the incumbent, David Granger, is now facing a more organised challenge to prevent him retaining the coveted top post amid speculations of likely snap general elections later this year.

Aubrey Norton
Aubrey Norton

In party politics, normally full of surprises, all things are possible, however questionable at times. So, ahead of today’s final round for delegates voting for office holders at the party’s 18th biennial congress, there came a surprisingly strange call from the governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP) to dump Granger’s leadership.
It was surprising enough that elements within the PNCR’s decision-making structures, (as determined at the 17th biennial congress) should be so displeased with Granger’s first-time leadership to be anxious to now replace him—as well as the party’s chairman, Basil Williams.

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Region Ten Chairman Sharma Solomon

A first-term leadership challenge in the PNC is unprecedented. Therefore, for the PPP-the nation’s oldest and most experienced party-to become unnecessarily involved in stirring the boiling political pot for replacement of Granger-who will be 70 years old come July 2015, is quite puzzling for this columnist.
Granger, a retired Brigadier of the Guyana Defence Force and reputed scion of the party’s founder-leader, late President Forbes Burnham, is otherwise also recalled as a political historian and former journalist. We once worked together in the field of newspaper journalism before his recruitment into the GDF.
The current inner-party politicking to scuttle his leadership has emerged at a period when the Government and the parliamentary Opposition coalition-led by the PNCR and including the minority Alliance For Change (AFC)—continue to be locked in fierce clashes on the modalities of governance.
The ongoing confrontation is primarily focused on what President Ramotar has labelled as “a devious, concerted political campaign to sabotage Guyana’s economic progress and stir disunity…”
Having won the leadership prize in a fierce contest against former Finance Minister Carl Greenidge, Granger went on to lead a coalition of Opposition parties under the umbrella political entity known as “A Partnership for National Unity” (APNU). Its array of small parties include the better known Working People’s Alliance (WPA).

Anti-Granger alliance
The current orchestrated move, from within ranks of the PNCR, to displace both Granger and Williams–amid allegations of plans to “rig the elections,” include publicity-prone elements from the normally militant Region 10 constituency.
This constituency includes the bauxite mining town of Linden—a traditional PNC stronghold. Among the advocates for “leadership changes” is the Region 10 current chairman, Sharma Solomon. He too was nominated for both leadership and chairmanship but subsequently disclosed his preference for the latter post.
Among the other leadership challengers is the party’s former controversial General Secretary, Aubrey Norton. He has been a consistent critic of Granger and hardly viewed-outside of his immediate political circles, as a unifying force of national dimension.
Though less effective than the economist, Carl Greenidge, who Granger had defeated for the leadership at the 17th congress, Norton is claiming robust support among the party’s so-called “grassroot” members. The proof of the pudding lies in its eating.

Clive Thomas’s nod
And I am inclined to believe that whatever substance there may be to Norton’s boast and criticisms of Granger’s leadership, I would, nevertheless, bet on the ex-GDF Brigadier retaining his position to lead the PNCR into coming national elections—either this year or in 2015.
The much respected economist, Dr. Clive Thomas, himself a frontline activist of the minority WPA, was quite forthcoming in endorsing Granger’s leadership, while expressing his own disappointment over APNU’s apparent shortcomings to influence the PPP in the pursuit of national unity objectives.
Granger should take heed. I assume that he too is aware of Dr. Thomas’s established commitment—along with that of the assassinated Dr. Walter Rodney and the late President Dr. Cheddi Jagan—on national unity for national progress.
Meanwhile, the PNCR’s long-serving General Secretary, Oscar Clarke, has been angrily rejecting allegations of moves to rig the elections of office bearers via registration of congress delegates. He has assured that all appropriate arrangements are in place for today’s elections for the 18th biennial congress, the formal opening of which took place on Friday.
Undoubtedly, the more significant surprise in the lead up to the start of this congress was the ruling PPP’s unusual open call for the PNCR’s delegates to “vote out David Granger as leader.”

PPP’s swipe
The PPP has claimed that “with so much of failure as leader, and so little charisma and appeal, Granger’s chances of retaining the leadership are far from secure…”
But at the time of writing, and amid pre-elections jostling and tension, Granger remained optimistic for victory.
Given the continuing bizarre politicking of the minority Alliance For Change (AFC)-from which new, constructive ideas are woefully lacking-it seems better to hope for a new-style leadership from Granger, with his preference for consultation rather than confrontation.
Since this is also the known preference by President Donald Ramotar—despite his party’s surprising anti-Granger statement-there is, therefore, cause for hope rather than despair for the politics of consultation and national unity.

(Analysis by Rickey Singh)

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