It wasn’t quite the five months it took to get a result for our 2020 Mingoed elections – but with just 1300 delegates eligible to vote – according to the Returning Officer (RO) Vincent Alexander of GECOM fame – your Eyewitness was hoping he’d get to know whether Comrade Norton was returned as leader of the PNC before going to bed on Sunday night. While he’d assumed that this was gonna be a Michael Jordan-like slam dunk with no one to oppose Norton, the meticulous Alexander noted that Walton-Desir and Forde hadn’t OFICIALLY withdrawn – just SUSPENDED their campaign – and as such their names remained on the ballots!! Alexander also implicitly disputed the numbers claimed by Congress Administrator, Sherwyn Benjamin that just under 2000 delegates had registered. PNC and numbers!!
So your Eyewitness pried open his eyes till midnight but keeled over and fall asleep without the confirmation. Finally, it was announced bright and early the next morning that Comrade Norton had received 1,040 votes of the 1,066 votes cast! Now this is an overwhelming vote of confidence in Comrade Norton – never mind the 200 or so delegates who didn’t bother to vote. Like your Eyewitness, they probably figured it was a done deal. But for a man who during national elections parses all sorts of possible anomalies on the voters’ list to the N the degree, your Eyewitness was taken aback by Alexander not bringing up the claims by Walton-Desir and Forde that the PNC delegates list wasn’t really kosher!!
Anyhow, the PNC now has a leader who’s been ratified by TWO Congresses!! With all the talk about a possible “consensus” leader coming from outside PNC, for good measure, there was also a resolution passed that declared that the chosen leader was the one who’ll gonna be taking them into the 2025 General Elections!! But just in case the leader in his infinite wisdom – quality PNC leaders are stipulated to have! – thinks he’s not good enough for the job, then he can defer to someone of his choice.
Now your Eyewitness is a tad confused about this “consensus candidate” business that’s been bloated to get all the Opposition parties under a single banner. His confusion comes from the fact that since the PNC is – and will remain – the largest Opposition party by light years – how come the “Consensus candidate” shouldn’t be the leader of the PNC?? Why exactly should some tail be wagging the Opposition dog?? Is there something WRONG with Comrade Norton? Did goat bite him? Somebody has to explain this conundrum – very slowly – to your Eyewitness!!
Anyhow, the names of the other Executives elected show that – like Desmond Houte did when he became leader – Norton is creating his PNC!!
…Caricom?
Well, yesterday was “Caricom Day” – which most citizens would be hard-pressed to explain save that it was made a Public Holiday!! Since Guyanese are always willing to have a day off, they’ll take Caricom Day!! But exactly what are we commemorating?? Over fifty years ago CariCom had been launched – but sadly, even its most vociferous cheerleaders would have to concede that its performance has fallen waaaay short of the initial expectations!!
But your Eyewitness is very supportive of supporting CariCom – and for very pragmatic reasons for our country. We gotta be honest with ourselves and accept that since rigging elections is part of the PNC’s DNA – just ask Forde and Walton-Desir!! – we’re gonna need an “inside” group of “our people” to tell it like it is – like Caricom did in 2020. With Rowley and his “This will not end well” to Golding’s “Sanctimonious Gangster” they caught the pulse of the PNC!!
And the riggers can’t accuse CariCom of pushing “regime change”!!
…Hurricane Beryl
Remember the old Mariner’s ditty that predicted the Hurricane season: “June, too soon; July, stand by; August, come they must; September, remember; October, all over” But with Beryl the first June Category 4 hurricane ever recorded, Climate change had upended our world!!
