Latest update April 17th, 2024 12:59 AM
Aug 22, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
One of the interesting dimensions of the election was the number of votes Aubrey Norton received for the vice-chair slot. It tells a story that needs elaboration. Guyana has a very small population, where ministers interact with villagers almost on a daily basis. In Guyana, ministers have two advantages when they contest internal elections party positions.
First, they know the delegates because of their incessant trips around the 83,000 square miles of Guyana. Secondly, even if delegates do not know who is who, they get to know who is who through the media. A most graphic example is the PRO for the AFC, Imran Khan. He edits the AFC’s organ named “The Key.”
During the AFC’s biennial conference of January 28, 2018, the AFC published a special edition of The Key, a day before the congress. The Key was shared out in the compound of the Vreed-en-Hoop Primary School on the day of the congress. This columnist received a copy which I am looking at as I type.
On the front page of The Key was an analysis of the AFC’s political success, and it carried a photograph of Imran Khan and his byline. Most interestingly, when the votes for the national executive were read out, Imran Khan topped the voting. Khan was in 2017 a virtual newcomer to the AFC, yet he emerged on top, beating many formidable AFC stalwarts.
How do you account for that? Delegates from far-flung areas may not know who Kofi Amara is at the time of voting for their party’s leadership. But if they are reading the party’s organ just before they cast their ballot and they see this large article by Kofi Amara with his photograph, and they see his name on the ballot paper, then they now know who he is. They are impressed by what they read and will vote for him.
My analysis of Khan’s emergence as the top vote-getter is that it was related to what delegates who didn’t know about him saw in The Key. I am not attributing any ulterior motive to Khan. My point is that the front page photograph in The Key on the day of voting acted in his favour.
This is where Aubrey Norton’s loss is in fact a victory. Norton came third behind two ministers – Annette Ferguson and George Norton. Ferguson got 24 votes more than Norton, and Minister Norton got 6 votes more than Aubrey. This was definitely a handsome showing on the part of someone who entered the race at the last minute therefore had no time to campaign and does not have a high profile state job – Norton works in the office of migration in the Ministry of Citizenship.
My point is that had Norton been a minister and was an early campaigner, he probably could have had a good showing for the chairman’s slot itself and would have won the vice-chair position. What does that tell you? That there is a large school in the PNC that wants the PNC to stick with its working class leaders. Whatever complaints you have against Norton, his politics is essentially geared towards empowerment of the working people. I cannot recall anyone accusing Norton of being a middle class PNCite.
What about the results for the office of the chairperson? Once a credible woman entered the race, I think it would have been a problem even for someone like Aubrey Norton. We are in an age where I think women’s justified position as leaders is universally accepted. However, I doubt if Volda Lawrence was a newcomer and not a minister, she would have made it. A male stalwart versus a female newcomer maybe would have won. Lawrence won because she is perceived as a traditional party princess.
Does the loss of Harmon tell you anything? Unless the President campaigned against Harmon, then I think Sunday afternoon’s voting is something that the president should worry about, because it has a direct impact on his leadership. Harmon lost for several reasons, the first being that he could not beat a top notch female leader. But there are other potent reasons, one of which should cause David Granger serious reflections.
In most countries in the world, when the constitution bars a president from running again and his/her deputy contests, people vote vicariously. They vote for the deputy because they believe that person is the choice of the incumbent president. Harmon is generally seen as the de facto president. In my opinion he is. I am contending that if Granger didn’t overtly or covertly favour Lawrence, then the PNC members do not want the military men to take over their party.
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