The People’s National Congress Reform’s forthcoming 18th Biennial Delegates’ Congress has attracted more public discourse and media attention than any of its recent predecessors, and that may well have to do with the fact that members and non-members of the party alike, sense that a juncture has been reached where, come this weekend, much more will be at stake than the election of new PNCR office bearers and, simultaneously, the election of a Leader of the Opposition.

The securing of more than 175,000 votes at the November 2011 general and regional elections by A Partnership for National Unity and the Alliance for Change jolted the People’s Progressive Party/Civic. In fact, every so often evidence emerges that the ruling party is still fretful, to say the least, over its status as a parliamentary minority. Under the constitution the ruling party still maintains its hold on both the presidency and its control over the executive branch of government. There are, however, things about the mathematics of the extant parliamentary arrangements that bother, nay, frustrate the PPP/C, like the fact, for example, that it has been unable to have its own way with the annual budget and several other governmental measures in Parliament.

At the same time questions continue to arise about the extent of the PPP/C’s popularity despite its occupancy of executive office. The crime rate including in particular the murder and armed robbery rates, credible assertions of widespread official corruption, cronyism, the primary and secondary school dropout rate, high rates of migration by educated graduates and high rates of youth unemployment all continue to stack up against the PPP/C administration.

Higher levels of public concern about our public health system have also arisen in the face of recent outbreaks of vector-borne diseases such as chickungunya and malaria. The ruling party has also had to deal with sporadic protests by paddy farmers, fishermen, minibus drivers, women’s organizations and Amerindian villagers. In the process issues have arisen about the quality of governance provided by the administration.

All of this points to the likelihood that the PPP/C, whenever it chooses to hold local government or national and regional elections, could face a stiff challenge from APNU and the AFC. Accordingly, and as presently configured, whoever is elected leader of the PNCR this weekend would likely lead the challenge against the PPP/C at the polls.

At the time of writing and as far as this newspaper is aware, two serious contenders have emerged in the race for the PNCR’s leadership, namely, the incumbent and leader of the parliamentary opposition David Granger and one-time general secretary and member of parliament Aubrey Norton. The latter is a long-standing PNC member who has traditional links with Linden and was believed to have been supportive of the candidatures of both the late Winston Murray and Carl Greenidge as successors to Robert Corbin as party leader. In the latter instance the competing candidate was Mr Granger.

Now Mr Norton has decided to throw his own hat into the ring against the man whose bid for the leadership of the PNCR he had previously opposed. That, of course is his right. He is a long-standing and senior member of the PNCR whose credentials as a party man cannot be denied. Mr Granger, on the other hand, won around two-thirds of the delegates’ votes at the July 2012 PNCR Congress and has since become Leader of the Opposition and Leader of APNU.

Mr Granger has set himself apart from other contemporary Guyanese politicians by penning his political thoughts in one area, in two books – Public Security: Criminal Violence and Policing in Guyana and Public Policy: The Crisis of governance in Guyana – which seek to proffer a framework for conceptualizing solutions to our security challenges.

It is of course for the delegates to the Congress to make their particular choices though one would hope that what certainly appears to be a history of differences of opinion between the two does not give rise to a grudge match in which the genuine merits of the respective candidates are jettisoned and replaced by decision-making at the ballot box that is generated by issues of recrimination and payback. The delegates to this weekend’s PNCR Congress have a duty to both their political party and to this nation as a whole.