WHERE IN our Caribbean Community but in Guyana could be found a major political party that seems bent on making a mockery of governance politics? I refer to the antics of the People’s  National Congress (PNC).
There are occasional examples of strange tactics and behaviour and also sheer fun politics by both ruling and opposition parties across the region. But the PNC, a major party in the pre and post-independence governing politics of Guyana, appears to have a vow to sustain fun politics as long as it takes to regain the reins of state power.
Having run the affairs of Guyana as a virtual one-party context for a quarter century between1968 and 1992, based on independently verified rigged national elections, the PNC remains committed to the politics of non-cooperation and, worse, hostility, against the governing Peoples Progressive Party .
Three recent examples should suffice: First, the PNC’s refusal (along with its parliamentary ally, Alliance for Change) to cast their one-seat majority vote in the 65-member parliament for enactment of a much required amendment to a 2009 legislation—Anti-Money Laundering and Countering  Financing of Terrorism Bill.
Failure to do so by this May 29 will result, as the PNC is fully aware, in Guyana being categorised for “earmarked for “blacklisting” by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) as a non-cooperative jurisdiction. This would have enormous negative consequences.
Conscious as they are of the shared consequences within CARICOM , the Georgetown-based Community Secretariat, as well as the Organisation of American States (OAS) are pleading for cooperation  for passage of the bill, but to no avail.

CFTA’s stand
The latest initiative by a CFATF goodwill delegation to Guyana last month to secure cooperation for enactment of the legislation failed because, as the PNC’s leader, David Granger, a retired Brigadier of the local army, Guyana Defence Force (GDF), contends that there was “a political crisis that needs a political solution..”
However, as negotiating representatives of the CFATF have made abundantly clear, the demands by the opposition were extraneous to the revised bill and related more to domestic politics in which they are not involved.
The result is that the PNC has adopted a position, unlike any other parliamentary opposition within CARICOM—and certainly here in Trinidad and Tobago, where partisan politicking now seriously jeopardises Guyana’s future social and economic progress. In short, as the country’s President, Donald Ramotar,  said, this behaviour by the opposition “holds this nation to ransom; its blackmail…”
It may be of interest to know that among the demands by the PNC, which have nothing to do with provisions in the amended legislation, are such domestic political issues as arrangements for local government elections,
The PNC seems bent on further injuring itself by showcasing how consistent it could also be in non-serious, indeed fun politics in another issue of national importance.

Probing Rodney’s killing
This time it relates to the current national enquiry into the assassination 34 years ago on the night of June 23, 1980, of the internationally famous historian and crusader for social justice, Dr Walter Rodney, in a bomb blast in Georgetown at the height of nation-wide political disturbances. I have dealt with this issue in earlier contributions in the Express.
For now, I will restrict comments to the recent decision  by the PNC to boycott participating in the three-member probe team involving three well known Caribbean legal luminaries, first after quibbling over the terms of reference.
However, when its parliamentary coalition partner, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA)—the party which Rodney a co-founded and led–opted to participate in the probe exercise, the PNC’s Granger told the local media that his party was committed to “do all it possibly can to protect its good name from all attempts by the government in sullying its (the party’s) good name…”
What is so quite amusing about this stand by the PNC leader is that the “all” he plans to do to avoid any real or perceived  “sullying” of his party’s “good name”, does not include what seems elementary—to participate in the independent probe like its junior partner, the WPA which itself is viewed as an aspect of Guyana’s ‘fun politics’ with the PNC out in front.
But in Guyana’s quest for much needed political stability and progress, this is simply a season of dangerous ’fun’ politics…”

Analysis by RICKEY SINGH
(Rickey Singh is a noted Guyana-born, Barbados-based Caribbean journalist)
(This article is published courtesy yesterday’s Trinidad Express)