The present PNC leadership race is more about the party having to redefine itself in circumstances different from those in which Forbes Burnham launched it in 1957; Desmond Hoyte inherited it in 1985, or Robert Corbin after 2002. As Marx noted, “Men make their own history, but not in circumstances of their making.” But contra Marx, the personality of the leader and his orientation to power are also crucial variables in the determination of the precise role the party will play.
Burnham’s overriding characteristics were his ambition and his intellect. These qualities, along with his oratorical virtuosity and tactical skills, earned him the label “charismatic”.
Installed into power in 1964 due to US Cold War imperatives, Burnham concluded he could not maintain the absolute control over the polity he felt was necessary to “mould” it to his vision under a democratic system. He recalled this at the 3rd Biennial Congress in Dec 1979, (where he had asked Rodney to make his will): “The trouble with us, comrades, is that we don’t know to read between the lines; we are always reading on top of the lines; we are more democratic than the people who teach us democracy.” Burnham addressed the question of power by simultaneously publicly building his instruments of rule – the party, the army, the bureaucracy, etc., while privately manipulating them to ensure their dependence and loyalty.
With the end of the Cold War, Burnham’s successor, Desmond Hoyte, first ruthlessly consolidated his hold over the party, and then pragmatically attempted to reverse Burnham’s totalitarian institutions and practices. He tried opening up the political economy by imitating Mikhail Gorbachev’s “glasnost and perestroika”. Unlike the latter, however, he did not have the luxury of fissioning Guyana to address the ethnic divisions in the society. He was removed from office in 1992 through free and fair elections, even though he attempted to woo the majority Indian Guyanese from outside the PNC’s traditional African Guyanese base. The residue of 28 years of Burnhamite policies that adversely impacted Indian Guyanese was too much for him to overcome. Ethnic politics had remained entrenched.
His leadership style after 1992 was to aggressively confront the PPP in a scorched earth, “mo fyaah; slow fyaah” strategy to remove them from power with street power in Georgetown. He exploited the mayhem to extract extensive concessions from the PPP – but which simply encouraged the radicals to demand a total abdication of power through direct attacks on the state and Indian Guyanese. Before he passed away in 2002, however, after a strong campaign from within the PNC by some “young lions” (including Aubrey Norton) Hoyte conceded that “power-sharing” might possibly be another mechanism for dealing with the African Guyanese Ethnic Security Dilemma.
He was succeeded by Robert Corbin, who had earned a formidable “street power” reputation in the tradition of the 1960s strongman Hamilton Green. As was explained to me by one card-carrying member of the African middle-class, “he was put there to manners the PPP”. But after all the “storm and fury” of direct attacks on the state by “Freedom Fighters”, this was crushed following the entry of a wild card – the Phantom Forces, such as that led by Roger Khan. Corbin then took another tack: to extend moderating the image of the PNC started by Hoyte, by masking it under a coalition as “APNU”.
For what it is worth, this was a strategy I felt was very sound for two reasons: demographic changes were inexorably whittling away the Indian Guyanese majority, and incumbency was beginning to dull the PPP’s shine to its base. From 2009 onwards, I argued against a confrontational, street protest approach against several activists, such as Lincoln Lewis, Eric Phillips and Freddie Kissoon, who had defined the PPP as an “elected dictatorship”. I posited that, in free and fair elections, the PPP was vulnerable, and I was proven right in 2011 and 2015.
And this brings us to the present PNC leadership race. Personality wise, Aubrey Norton is a PNC party product. While lacking Burnham’s charisma and eloquence, he makes up for it in grassroots credibility. Coming out of the army rather than the PNC, Joseph Harmon may yet have greater control of the party’s apparatus, but his legitimacy from the base may be problematic. In terms of power, both should understand the external environment enough to appreciate the futility of direct attacks on the state, which some are again promoting.
Rationally, Guyana’s demographics dictate democratic politics by both the PPP and PNC.
