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Dec 09, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
It would seem that the death of Desmond Hoyte has brought about the end of the PNC. There is a positive spin-off from this. If the PNC is no longer around in 2011, the possibility is more than great that we may see a defeat for the PPP. It seems that Mr. Corbin is leading the PNC into oblivion.
No political party can exist if its essential leadership is decapitated. At the moment, the PNC is heading in that direction. What is Mr. Corbin thinking in his pursuit of the prosecution and persecution of Team Alexander?
First, even though he secured his tenure as leader of the party at its last Congress, defeating, by controversial means, the challenge of Team Alexander, Mr. Corbin thinks he cannot co-exist with Team Alexander because they will try by subtle means to weaken him. In other words, Mr. Corbin sees the fight with Team Alexander in zero sum ways. This explains the hounding down of the constituents of the Alexander edifice.
As an alternative, Mr. Corbin will reintegrate the breakaway faction but he does not want them in the control tower. He sees the diminution of the group as a method of retaining his control over the PNC.
Mr. Corbin is not opposed to having the gang that challenged him at the last congressional election return to their home at Congress Place but they must not be allowed into leadership roles. I spoke to Vincent Alexander a few months back and he opined that Mr. Corbin is not averse to the dissidents retaining their activist role in the PNC.
But according to Alexander, he and his people cannot resume their PNC status as if nothing happened. He was explicit in his demand that in any return the agenda of Team Alexander must be considered by Mr. Corbin’s leadership. This is where Mr. Corbin is inflexible.
In realpolitik terms, Mr. Corbin tells himself that he has no choice but to wash away the presence of Team Alexander. But Mr. Corbin knows or he should know that his choice has disastrous consequences for the future of the PNC and the essential fulcrum on which the PNC stands – African-Guyanese.
Mr. Corbin is in a Catch 22 labyrinth that is extremely depressing for him. He dissolves Team Alexander and he reigns but the PNC gradually withers away. He accepts his critics back into the fold and they eventually succeed him. This is the reality that faces Mr. Corbin.
Robert Corbin has to weigh which is more important to Guyana. Any honest historian, and any objective social analyst, will tell you, the plight of African-Guyanese is at its deepest level at this time in the development of the Guyanese nation than at any period since Emancipation.
In addition, the last three years has been the most frustrating for PNC supporters since the fifties. If at anytime in its history, African Guyanese need leadership and if at anytime since its birth, the PNC needs vision and strategy, it is in 2008.
Mr. Corbin is one of the most experienced politicians in the world. He rose to the ranks of the youth arm of the PNC more than forty years ago. Surely, he cannot be unaware of the consequences of his present attitude towards Team Alexander.
Where did the trouble begin? It started when Mr. Corbin acceded to a discussion on a third term for Mr. Jagdeo. My source on this information is more than a hundred percent reliable. The people who comprise Team Alexander did not disagree but their strategizing on the constitutional role of the PNC in a coalition government differed fundamentally from Corbin’s. The rest is now history.
Mr. Corbin seems to be drifting. Aubrey Norton and Basil Williams will compete with each other to fill the leadership role when Mr. Corbin walks away in the sunset. But Mr. Corbin has other plans. He favours Dr. Van-West Charles.
Charles will certainly receive substantial support from African Guyanese with his persuasion that Burnham’s policies were right. African-Guyanese at the moment do not want to hear anything bad about Burnham. If you dare tell them the bad things Burnham did, on each count, they will tell you the PPP Government since 1992 have been worse. Some of the evidence is compelling.
The problem with Van-West Charles is that he will win the hearts and minds of African Guyanese but the coloured class will root for another party and East Indians will stick with the PPP. Mr. Corbin can change all of that by showing political finesse and intellectual skills. No one knows what is inside his mind.
Whatever is inside of it, it is not helping African-Guyanese, the PNC and Guyana.
LISTEN HOW JAGDEO WILL MAKE ALL GUYANESE RICH!!!
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