Opposition’s leadership legitimacy crisis

The upcoming elections have uncovered an intriguing contrast in the choice of Presidential Candidates by the parliamentary parties, leading to a dangerous disinformation campaign by the Opposition. In the People’s National Congress-Reform (PNCR), their leader, who is traditionally their Presidential Candidate, was to be elected last August at Congress Place in Sophia.

The Chairman of Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice), PNCR member Sharma Solomon described the rigging of the election. Instructed to select delegates from Linden based on specified boundaries, Solomon complied.

However, as he later explained: “Subsequently and without consultation with leaders of the Linden groups and the regional leadership, the (PNCR) Secretariat, apparently aided by others, dismantled the original groups (i.e.) the groups formed on boundary lines.”

Linden was eventually allocated 54 delegates rather that the 120 originally calculated. The Linden delegation, including Aubrey Norton, who had challenged David Granger for the leader’s position, all walked out of the Congress, rather than rubber-stamping a fraudulent election.

The leadership of the PNCR thus fell into the lap of David Granger, but it has created a rift between him and one of the most critical regions with a significant bloc of traditional PNCR supporters. This rift has reverberated across the other PNC party groups in the country, compounding the alienation from 2011 when Granger brought in a phalanx of volunteers from the ex-army corps to mobilise.

While APNU has been locked in coalition talks with the Alliance For Change (AFC), that grouping has not unexpectedly confirmed that Granger is also their Presidential Candidate. APNU is basically a cover from the PNCR to convince the electorate they have changed their core PNC stripes. There exists, therefore an existential crisis of leadership legitimacy in the PNCR/APNU combine.

In the AFC, the leadership crisis presented by their putative Presidential Candidate is no less severe. That party had been founded by Raphael Trotman from the PNCR and Khemraj Ramjattan of the PPP/C, after both could not get into the leadership sweepstakes of their party.

Their foundational principle to address what they identified as the fundamental contradiction of Guyanese politics – the racial/ethnic schism between Indian and African Guyanese – was to alternate their Presidential Candidate at each election.

This year, however, when it was the African-Guyanese leader’s turn, Khemraj Ramjattan unilaterally and arbitrarily selected his Indian-Guyanese friend Moses Nagamootoo. While he has attempted to justify the choice as a pragmatic one – to “split” the Indian-Berbician vote that had traditionally gravitated to the PPP/C to deliver at least a plurality to APNU – the African-Guyanese members of the AFC were peeved.

By demanding that the AFC – read Nagamootoo – be the Presidential Candidate if the coalition emerges, the AFC is hoping that when Granger eventually emerges as the leader and candidate, the AFC’s supporters in Berbice will see they “tried”. They would have eaten their cake and had it too.

But it is clear that the AFC is taking a big gamble and, like the PNCR, their Presidential candidate has severe illegitimacy issues for the May elections. On the other hand, and in contradistinction, stands the PPP/C which has unanimously stood behind Donald Ramotar as their Presidential Candidate.

Unable to find a chink in the PPP/C’s leader’s legitimacy armour, and smarting from their deficit in this area, the Opposition has insidiously attempted to create a contretemps by suddenly invoking their chant from the past that “Jagdeo is trying for a third term”.

Because President Ramotar has built and furthered the successes of the predecessor Jagdeo regime, this was presented as “delegitimising” him. Most recently when independent actors challenged the legality of prior constitutional change, including the two-term Presidential limit, Jagdeo was accused of being behind it, even though he rubbished this claim and gave his unequivocal support to President Ramotar.

Guyanese voters should not be distracted by the Opposition’s desperate attempts to shift their leadership legitimacy woes.