PNCR will deal with “division” question internally- Harmon

Last Updated on Thursday, 22 April 2021, 15:01 by Denis Chabrol

The People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) would address any division internally, executive member Joseph Harmon said Thursday amid perceptions in some quarters that himself and party Chairman Volda Lawrence are in two different camps.

“Any question about division and so on will be dealt with inside of  the party. That is the kind of democracy which we have,” he said, adding that the now 60-year old PNCR had gone through “several issues in the past.”

Between the mid-1980s and early 1990s, then party leader Desmond Hoyte and party strongman, Hamilton Green had soured relations, eventually leading to Green’s expulsion which had led to a breakaway faction that had contested the 1994 Local Government Elections and had won the plurality of seats in the Georgetown City Council.

Mr. Harmon stressed that he was confident that the PNCR would be able to address any challenges. “I have no doubt that any issues, which appear to confront the party at this time, can be dealt with by our people,” he said.

Mr. Harmon, who lost the Chairmanship to Ms. Lawrence at the 2018 PNCR Congress, was co-opted on the PNCR’s executive and then parachuted into the position of Opposition Leader, disagreed with suggestions of a division between his camp and that of Ms. Lawrence. “You said there was a perception. I don’t agree. That’s a perception and a perception and sometimes the reality are not the same. I would just leave it at that,” he said.

Mr. Harmon refused to be drawn into comment on whether he would accept nomination for the post of party leader.

The seeming differences between the duo in the PNCR becomes apparent whenever Attorney-at-Law James Bond or Ms. Lawrence has to go to the police or Magistrates’ Court. Neither Mr. Harmon nor any of the current APNU+AFC parliamentarians turn up in  solidarity.

However, in the past, Mr. Harmon, PNCR Leader David Granger and AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan have turned up outside the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court in solidarity with Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo and opposition parliamentarian David Patterson during their court appearances.

Late last year, Ms. Lawrence and Mr. Harmon had taken two starkly different positions concerning the unrest on the West Coast Berbice following the brutal slaying of the Isaiah and Joel Henry whose mutilated bodies had been found aback Cotton Tree village, West Coast Berbice.