If your Eyewitness were to paraphrase Tina Turner and ask about the just concluded PNC leadership elections: “What’s race got to do with it?” the answer’s gotta be a resounding, “EVERYTHING!!!” And the reason isn’t hard to see. Ever since they were booted out of office, the PNC and their myrmidons have been screaming, “Racism!!!” at every initiative the PPP has taken. Calling for the entire Guyanese nation to take the COVID-19 pandemic seriously and get vaccinated?? Racism!! Never mind that literally every country on planet earth has done the same!! Flood relief for affected farmers?? Racism!! 7% salary increase for Government workers and sugar workers?? Racism! The race card was the only card they played.
And we all know the reason for this dog-whistling, don’t we? As always, when it comes to the PNC, it boils down to seizing power by any means necessary. RACE became their card the moment Burnham walked out from the unified nationalist PPP and launched the PNC to satisfy his lust for power. He sweet-talked African-Guyanese to follow him like the Pied Piper he was. His own sister Jessie had written about this in her tract, “Beware my brother Forbes”! Anyhow, the increasingly strident race-baiting campaign exposed the PNC for what they are – a party determined to keep Guyana racially divided.
That a picture’s worth a thousand words is proven by the picture of the new PNC Executive!! NOT A SINGLE INDIGENOUS PERSON WAS DEEMED FIT AND PROPER TO BE ELECTED!! And a single 22-year-old Indian-Guyanese novice riding on Norton’s coattail to become the Treasurer. Did anyone EVER hear of a treasurer influencing a political party’s policies? Then there were 3 Indian-Guyanese in the 15-member CEC. And this is the party accusing the PPP of racism?? This is tribal politics to the max!!
Well, Roysdale Forde, who ran for the Chairmanship – and lost massively to a Norton unknown cipher – did predict what’d happen if Norton’s tribal politics won out, didn’t he? They’ve just doomed the PNC to another 23 years in the wilderness, that’s what! Let’s face the facts, even if Norton and his team don’t want to. The PNC base that they slavishly pandered to is – at best – 29% of the populace; along with maybe another 13% of the Mixed-Guyanese. So they end up with 42% of the vote – about the same they’ve been getting since 1964!! Burnham was allowed to rig to overcome that statistic, but Granger’s attempt was slapped down in 2020. Dis time
All of this just to lead the base to protest (and most likely riot) in the sun against “the man”? What’s different this time from “lang time”?
…against Christmas
Your Eyewitness could sense the desperation in the organisers of the PNC’s Congress to get their elections out of the way before the big “C” Day!! That it had to be shoehorned before year end was bad enough…but only the 7 days before Christmas?? This was sacrilegious!! What to do with those “swans a-swimming”, not to mention that partridge in the pear tree??!! In Guyana, that translates into schlepping carpets on one’s head through the streets of Georgetown while dragging boxes of plastic toys!
It could be that the votes of just about half of the 2500 PNC members here and in the diaspora might’ve been caused almost as much by the Christmas competition as by the general ennui over the factionalism occasioned by the elections. Folks gotta realise that “democracy” is a nebulous concept among the PNCites!! Generally, they just vote according to whatever the leader says. Just look at the success of Norton’s slate and you’ll know of what your Eyewitness speaks!!
Now onto Christmas and the New Year!!
…and Norton’s second coming
Norton teared up when accepting his installation as the new PNC Leader. He must’ve remembered his humiliation when, as General Secretary, he was summarily dismissed as a “creature” of the then leader!
