Granger to join talks as Norton pushes to become Opposition Leader

Leader of the People’s National Congress, Aubrey Norton on Friday asserted that Opposition Leader Joseph Harmon has not been co-opted to serve on the party’s Central Executive Committee, one month after a new leadership was elected.
The PNCR’s constitution allows for the party leader to co-opt non-elected members to the Central Executive Committee, in which there are about 10 spots to fill.

Member of Parliament Roysdale Forde, Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) Chairman Daniel Seeram, Joan-Ann Ramacindo and Sherwood Lowe have already been co-opted to the CEC. In addition to losing his contest for the party’s leadership, Harmon was also not elected to any of the Central Executive Committee seats of the PNCR.
Leader of the PNC, when asked about Harmon’s co-option to the Committee during a press conference on Friday, suggested that the names of those selected have been released to the public.
“Anybody that we have co-opted, we have informed the press. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that the party intends to treat these matters as internal matters. We will discuss and when we think it is necessary that the press be informed, we will inform the press,” a tight-lipped Norton maintained.
Meanwhile, Harmon is expected to engage further with Norton to iron out his potential replacement in the National Assembly.

The Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the PNC had decided that its newly-elected leader should sit in the National Assembly and hold the post of the country’s Opposition Leader. This meant that Norton would replace Harmon as Leader of the Opposition. However, PNC is a party within the APNU, which is governed by its own protocols.

Dialogue
As it stands, former President and former leader of PNC, David Granger is the Representative of the List of Candidates for APNU/AFC. Granger is also the Chairman of APNU while Harmon, on the other hand, is the General Secretary. The new PNC leader indicated that Granger has signalled his intention to dialogue once the initial engagement is completed.
“As far as I know, the discussions involve the Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform and the Leader of the Opposition. From Mr Granger, the former leader of the party has decided that he will engage but he wants to see the outcome of this first phase of discussion. He placed that in writing.” APNU had said that in 2011 at the birth of the APNU, a collective decision was made as to who would be Head of the List, adding that in 2015 a collective decision was made as to who would be head of the list when the Alliance for Change coalesced with APNU.

According to APNU, if there are issues or concerns that need to be addressed, any member of the partnership or coalition knows the method that should be used in addressing those issues or concerns. The members of the APNU, the statement noted, would therefore expect that all members, in keeping with the proper and ethical norms, would bring their positions on matters before the APNU Executive for consensus and agreement rather than making public pronouncements on matters that cannot be decided upon by any one party. (G12)