FOR a small population, this country has a lot of psychiatrists. A few months ago, the ACDA point man, Eric Philips, wrote publicly that I was of unsound mind. I did not know Philips was a psychiatrist, but I was told he was one of them, only that he failed a majority of his psychiatric courses that prevented graduation.

The latest addition to register with the Guyana Medical Council is businessman Terrance Campbell. He has followed closely in Phillips’ shoes: Failed courses; no graduation.
Yet Campbell has publicly proclaimed that I have a psychotic mind. I will devote a column to Campbell’s interest in why I did not complete my doctorate. In doing so, I will leave the young generation of this country to judge our respective contributions to Guyana and the Caribbean. More on that very topic shortly.

For now, let’s look at another description of me that, together with the insanity appellation, have followed me since I was a radical, anti-Burnham UG student in 1974. This week, former PNC parliamentarian and current backer of Aubrey Norton’s leadership, James McAllister referred to me as pseudo-intellectual.
In a letter in the Kaieteur News last Monday, McAllister went on a long political rampage to disprove the identity of his action against the PNC leader, Robert Corbin, with that of the current anti-Corbin critics who have recently left the PNC’s leadership.

McAllister is referring to my last Friday’s column. My contention in that item was that what Amanda Walton-Desir (AMD) and Roysdale Forde did to the current PNC leader was what McAllister, Vincent Alexander and Aubrey Norton did to the then PNC leader, Robert Corbin.
What is in my Friday piece that has so upset McAlister? In his epistle, McAllister takes issue with time and place; not my essential point. Let me repeat my crucial argument: McAllister, Alexander and Norton openly challenged Corbin to have him replaced as leader.

McAllister went into details of how he and others supported Corbin when he became leader, and worked closely with him. Therefore, I am incorrect to say that on assuming the leader position, Corbin faced internal strife. McAlister holds onto that factor, and it determines his entire position on my pseudo-intellectualism.
If I got names and dates wrongly about who challenged Corbin so he can be replaced, that does not weaken my solid contention that McAlister is in no position to criticise Norton’s challengers, because he did the same to Corbin. What McAllister neatly avoided (And I am not going to be diplomatic; I am saying he was deliberate), is the viciousness of Norton’s confrontation against Corbin that we did not see in Forde, AWD and others.
Corbin, the leader of the PNC, and Norton, ended up in the High Court. AWD and Forde, after the Congress in which manipulation and conspiracy combined to deny them the leadership position, the two persons never went public with any criticism of Norton.
To date, AWD and Forde have not pursued a confrontation with the PNC leader. There is nothing in the public domain of AWD and Forde bad-mouthing Norton. The opposite occurred when Corbin and Norton squared off.

Corbin sued Norton for public libelous statements made against him.

The point is, there was more bad blood and animosity between Corbin and Norton than Norton and AWD and Forde. The situation was so bad that Corbin removed McAllister from parliament, and requested that Alexander resign from the position he held in GECOM because his nomination was done through the PNC.
What people in this country do not know is that there are five GECOM commissioners representing their respective political parties in observation of the constitution in which the six commissioners are nominated by the two political giants: PPP and PNC.

Vincent Alexander is squatting at GECOM because he has resigned from the PNC more than 15 years ago, and the PNC has not rescinded Corbin’s recall of Alexander. On Alexander refusing to resign, Corbin did not pursue the controversy. The next leader of the PNC, David Granger, did not pay attention to Alexander’s untenable position at GECOM.
Alexander’s role at GECOM is a violation of the Carter/Price formula of the Constitution. The six commissioners must come from their respective parties. Which political party Alexander represents in GECOM? Sorry for this long diversion from the MacAllister response.

I mentioned Alexander because I thought it is controversies like that McAllister and Campbell should be concerned with rather than the intellectual emptiness and mental breakdown of Frederick Kissoon.  I close by asserting that Alexander, McAllister and Norton accused Corbin of not having a clean election at Congress, and history repeated itself when Norton did the same last year.    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.