PNCR signals need for fence-mending ahead of 2025 general elections

Last Updated on Wednesday, 7 August 2024, 7:41 by Writer

The People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) on Tuesday – at separate events to mark the 39th death anniversary of its founder-leader, Forbes Burnham – indicated a willingness to patch up pre-congress differences to unitedly campaign and contest next year’s general and regional elections.

Chairman of the PNCR’s Council of Elders, Hamilton Green told a wreath-laying ceremony at Burnham’s mausoleum in the Botanical Gardens’ Seven Ponds Place of Heroes that he intended to sound a unity appeal in the coming days. “I will, over the next few weeks, make an appeal to the leadership of this party to ensure that all hands are on deck, that we exercise compassion, and difficult as it may be, to deal with evil to show forgiveness because the task, the prize is monumental,” he said.

In the run-up to the June 28 to 30, 2024 Biennial Delegates Congress, PNCR member Vanessa Kissoon had endorsed a public claim that PNCR Leader Aubrey Norton had allegedly made a sexual overture to her, with a gun in his possession, while he had been transporting her from Georgetown to Linden on an unspecified date. He had denied that allegation and threatened to take legal action. The PNCR’s Council of Elders had launched an internal investigation but there was no word on the outcome.

Also, ahead of that party’s internal elections, several party members including Roysdale Forde, Dawn Hastings-Williams, Annette Ferguson and Amanza Walton-Desir had publicly raised concerns about the fairness of the system to guarantee a free and fair party election for leader and the 15-member Central Executive Committee.

Mr Norton did not speak at the wreath-laying ceremony, but later Tuesday he told an event organised by the PNCR’s women’s arm, the National Congress of Women (NCW), that he was ready to be magnanimous. “I urge all in the People’s National Congress Reform to make the party bigger than them, including me,” he said.

He said the PNCR’s leadership had faced opposition in the past. “It is not the first time that there is opposition to leadership in the party. The history of the PNC has been a history in which every leader is challenged but, as leaders over the years, we have developed the political skill to survive, progress and take our party forward,” said Mr Norton who was described as Guyana’s next President.

The PNCR leader said internal party differences were nothing new and date back to the period when its Founder-Leader was alive. “We were hot little boys and we would get up and tear the leadership to pieces and then Burnham will pull you in a corner. He says ‘enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself.’ He said ‘you all lil backside never confront the PPP for power. The first time you have to confront them for power, you will understand the beast you’re dealing with’ and I can say it to you: that’s a fact.”

Mr Burnham died in office as Guyana’s Executive President on August 6, 1985, while undergoing surgery at the Georgetown Public Hospital. Shortly after his passing, his successor, Desmond Hoyte, turned around the system from socialism to a market-driven economy. Many state-owned enterprises had been sold out, plans made to introduce university tuition fees in exchange for World Bank financing, and previously banned or restricted food items were once again allowed.