PNCR’s Coretta Mc Donald appeals for party unity

Last Updated on Wednesday, 1 March 2023, 22:27 by Denis Chabrol

People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) executive member, Coretta Mc Donald on Wednesday said her party was working feverishly to heal divisions dating back to when the coalition was unseated from government but she appealed to party faithful to do much more to bring about party unity.

“As it is right now, we are working very, very hard, extremely hard to pull the factions together because we have recognised that we can’t go forward  if we are in pieces,” Ms Mc Donald told a Town Hall meeting in New Jersey, United States to update the Guyanese diaspora about political developments in her homeland.

She announced that several programmes and initiatives were in the pipeline “to bring some of our leaders back into the fold” but she did not name them.

She urged attendees to write letters to the PNCR’s Central Executive and past leaders to remind them “that the party is bigger than all of us.”  Former Leader David Granger, former leader-hopeful Joseph Harmon and former General Secretary Amna Ally have all faded away from active politics after Mr Aubrey Norton and his slate swept to power in the December 2021 PNCR internal elections.

The PNCR executive member chided unnamed party supporters for not demonstrating party discipline. “We  cannot go forward like that because let me tell you what: Don’t think the PPP don’t got their confusion but you know what? We don’t hear about it or if a little piece slips out, that’s all you hear. Every time we got issues in our party, you got to see it in the media. You have to hear about it here. We have to stop those kinds of nonsense and we have to move together recognising  that the PPP are our enemies and not we here ourselves,” she said.

Ms McDonald said after the 2020 general and regional elections, many supporters felt deflated, demotivated and demoralised coupled with bitter disagreements among several factions. “On top of that, we had quite a lot of internal buse out, fall-out, breakaway factions; all kinds of craziness,” she said.

According to her, open disagreements among PNCR supporters was giving the PPP “ammunition” to fight them. Ms Mc Donald said herself, City Mayor Ubraj Narine, Paul Slowe, parliamentarian Nima Flue-Bess, Natasha Singh-Lewis and others would continue to fight to ensure the PNCR is united .