The PNC is back, so beware
THERE are some recent developments in the political arena which would suggest that the PNC has intensified its efforts to resurrect their late founder-leader Forbes Burnham.Guyanese would have thought that the PNC was serious in projecting a new image when they embarked on name changes and party symbols. One would have thought that the WPA leaders believed that the ‘hand’ on APNU’s symbol was meant to be a ‘clean hand’, one which can be trusted. Furthermore, AFC leaders have now embarked on a journey to convince Guyanese that they must forget the past. What is a great puzzle is on one hand Guyanese are asked to forget the past, while on the other hand, the current leaders of the PNC are intensifying their efforts to resurrect the past and the man who destroyed this country with his dictatorial rule through the barefaced rigging of elections and corruption.
Firstly, the PNC decided to start their election campaign on Burnham’s birthday and this is no coincidence. They want the supporters of the PNC to know that they have not moved away from the principles of the Founder-Leader and that the identity of the party has not been compromised in any way. This is in effect saying the WPA has been swallowed into the belly of the PNC and has lost its identity. APNU is the PNC of old! This is the spirit of revival which will cause the emotional surge to revitalise and energise the PNC supporters since the message is: the old PNC is here again!
Secondly, the strategic coalition of the AFC and APNU is the old modus operandi which was used by Burnham in 1964. The PNC is willing to coalesce with AFC in order to depose the PPP. The Cummingsburg Accord is without legal merit, it is outside the Constitution and depends heavily on the premise that Granger will honour the arrangement. But again, it should be recalled that when D’Augiar resigned as Finance Minister, the other ministers of the UF were bought by Burnham and the UF lost its Third party status forever. The present APNU/AFC coalition can be seen to be taken from the ‘playbooks of Forbes Burnham’, not Cheddi Jagan’s, as was wrongfully attributed by Ralph Ramkarran! Ramkarran should know that the present coalition is about acquiring power by the PNC and has nothing to do with social and economic development of this country. Show some sense of objectivity, Mr Ramkarran!
Thirdly, it must be noted with great interest that Robert Corbin is back! According to APNU’s General Secretary, ‘ the party has realised that its past members, as well as its present members, can make all the difference in the results of the elections…so Mr Corbin has a role to play’. Corbin’s nefarious role in the old PNC is not easily forgotten. Is it a coincidencethat the old PNC players are coming home to roost? These are people who were part of the gang which destroyed this country. They have deliberately kept in the background but have now emerged because the final kill has been made- the AFC has been craftily snared and the PNC has everything on stream to achieve what they have been deprived of since 1992.Trotman has done well to use the hate-mongers– Nagamootoo and Ramjattan — to the advantage of the PNC.
But the PNC has failed to understand that those who have supported the AFC in the past will never support the PNC, since the past has been indelibly written in their very psyche and soul. This is not about Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese, it is about a dictatorial government which jailed people and seize their property simply because they wanted food; a government which pauperised an entire nation; a government which rigged and murdered people to stay in power; a government which caused an exodus of the people and a government which denied its people basic human rights and dignity.
The old PNC is back, so beware!
HASEEF YUSUF
AFC Councillor-Region 6
extracted from the Guyana Chronicle
