FORMER President David Granger comes across as a cool, calm and collected guy. Quite light spirited, thoughtful, a stickler for discipline and deliberative. I often heard terms like “Granger the chest grandmaster” and Granger “the Brigadier/strategist”, in reference to his politics.
These may indeed aptly describe his interpersonal qualities which would make him an excellent husband, father, friend, neighbour and just a good human being. I do not know enough about Granger’s personal life to hazard a comment or analysis.

That said, what I do have evidence of, is his practice of politics and even if I was untrained in the social sciences, there is still enough evidence to make a citizen’s evaluation. Granger’s entire political career was marked by positive attributes, overcome almost entirely by self-cancelling negatives.
Granger stands above any other politician alive today in minting formal political group alliances. He is credited with forming APNU and then broadening that to include APNU+AFC which took office in 2015.

Just as successful as he was with political formations, he was savage with dismantling the agreements upon which they are built. The WPA, for example, lamented for years that Granger does not consult with them on major decisions as required by the joining agreement, in fact, that is the major grouse of the WPA for leaving the APNU formation.

Just the other day, Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton questioned the validity of some flash in the pan parties parading as unquestionable APNU members. Essentially, he seemed to be hinting that Granger admitted the two latest parties, on his own whim, without following the rules.
Next, there was the Cummingsburg Accord with the AFC that was breached the moment Granger became president. He slashed responsibilities of ministries under the AFC, he did not appoint all the ministerial candidates proposed by the AFC, he appointed more APNU ministers than the agreement dictated and refused to hold formal interparty dialogue.

These are not the traits of a thoughtful grandmaster or artful negotiator, but rather, a straight-up political bully. AFC had the wherewithal to check Granger but flatly refused to confront him. In fact, the top leadership acquiesced against the wishes of many other executives of AFC who were ready to riotously confront Granger.

Granger touted youths as the pillar of his political success and boasted of a youth driven government, prior to taking office. As soon as he took office, almost the entirety of his ministerial corps was in their 50s, 60s and 70s.
Granger’s administration employed a “Youth Policy Advisor” who generated a Youth Policy for discussion, refinement and implementation; the policy didn’t even receive a cursory glance. Soon after Granger was sworn in, all sorts of long retired people, whose only fitting descriptive was “old” and way pass their political prime, came out of the woodworks. They were employed by Granger in almost all of the top posts in the country, even his GECOM commissioners. Granger did not trust youths to run any significant administrative endeavor.

The political record of Granger does not reflect a light spirited expression, instead many mean-spirited measures were meted out to some of his own activists and people who should’ve help him win office in 2020.

Under the Granger presidency, I witnessed the savage treatment of Mayor Sharma Solomon, Vanessa Kissoon and others. Even Aubrey Norton was put in his place for perceived conflicts and existed on the political periphery of the Granger government.
Due to minor interparty haggle, I saw Granger refuse to talk to, or shake hands (basic tenets of civility) with AFC’s political consultant from Jamaica who was credited for helping to design a winning 2015 campaign.

Granger embraced too many people who did not help him win in 2015 or could not help him in 2020 or, for that matter, could not help any candidate win in any election in any era of Guyana’s political history.

One of Granger’s political legacy is presiding over a party where division grew exponentially. When he handed over the PNC to Norton, the party was more divided than when he found it. In fact, the divisions were so deep that a senior leader and former General Secretary said openly that she will never do any political work for the PNC as long as it is presided over by Aubrey Norton.

To this day, divisions run deep in the PNC, a direct legacy of David Granger and Aubrey Norton have proven that he does not have the capacity to undo this wreckage. The manifestation of Granger’s oxymoronic political nature has earned him the nickname “Sanctimonious Gangster”.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.