…by PNC
Your Eyewitness is still mulling over what’s behind the PNC ripping off the mask it had so painstakingly created and donned to convince Guyanese – and more importantly, the diplomatic community – it had changed violent stripes. He understood the need for the makeover.
The world had moved on from the Cold War days when the West routinely overlooked the excesses of tin-pot dictators. Theodore Roosevelt’s retort when a Latin American ally was criticised: “he’s a son of a bitch; but he’s our son of a bitch”, is emblematic.
In fact, as in Guyana with the PNC, they actively encouraged thuggish and violent behaviour and even facilitated it. The problem today is, the core of the PNC still has a living memory of what got them into power in the first place and when under threat, this element is always ready to reassert itself. Robert Corbin, who in many respects epitomised the “strongman” element, has to be given credit for committing political hara-kiri when he backed David Granger as party leader against his former protégé Aubrey Norton.
With his avuncular and benign image, while a dyed-in-the-wool PNCite, being out of the day-to-day functioning of the PNC party and its modus operandi, Granger could get away with the strategy of projecting a “kinder, gentler” PNC. And he did so to such an extent, he actually was allowed to hide the beloved PNC brand within APNU!! The problem was, Granger went about downgrading the PNC-die-hards as he placed his squaddies from the Disciplined Forces in almost all the strategic State institutions.
The hard-line PNCites tried to dig in their heels against their peripheralisation, but lacked the mechanism to seize control of the party without splitting their base, which was convinced that Granger was the best thing since sliced bread!! He’d recaptured power, hadn’t he?? But what the no-confidence loss has done is to give them an issue to rally their troops. The quick acceptance of the results of the no-confidence vote by Nagamootoo – who’s not even a “born PNC” – and Volda Lawrence was a godsend to them.
With Granger – who’d gone along with the latter – out of the jurisdiction and ailing to boot, the hard-line PNCites saw an opening and seized the moment. They knew the ordinary PNC members, especially the lumpen elements in Georgetown, were chomping on the bits for a chance to flex their muscles. Their lot hadn’t improved under the PNC-led Government, but here was a chance to take out their frustrations on their old nemesis – the PPP!
It’s against this background, “strongman” Aubrey Norton was dragged out from under the rock where he’d been living for the past three years to become the face of the PNC.
The mask is off!
…in Norton’s narrative
Norton didn’t realise the Freudian slip he committed when responding to the question about the absent PNC “leaders”. Asserting they had a “plethora” of leaders, Norton said, “We are not averse to the one-man show that is Jagdeo“!! Meaning the PNC approves of “one man” leadership – epitomised, of course, by Forbes Burnham!! The two faceless PNC functionaries who flanked Norton certainly proved the point, since they just mutely nodded and smirked throughout the presser!!
Norton said nothing new or substantive, but it was the pugnaciousness of the incendiary rhetoric, delivered with his “game face”, that conveyed the PNC message. As he emphasised, “You’re dealing with a political issue, and not dealing with political priests…”. Thuggery was back!! The boast: “In any election the APNU/AFC coalition can defeat the PPP”, sounded hollow amidst his frantic delaying tactics!!
The personalising of the PNC’s attack against Jagdeo and his “criminal PPP cabal” to ensure “Guyana does not fall back into their hands” reveals the narrative the PNC will play to energise the base.
Guyana is only for the PNC!!
…by Venezuela
What’s tragic is the old-guard PNCites are widening fissures in our society rather than bringing it together, even as Venezuela has launched a new attack on our sovereignty.
They’d cut Guyana’s face to spite the PPP.