Dear Editor,
Please permit me another opportunity to lecture to my former lecturer, Mr Vincent Alexander, in his capacity as ‘Leader-in-Waiting’ of the main opposition People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR).
I dismiss the proposition by Mr Alexander that Mr Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham was not a dictator. In responding to my earlier letter on this subject that has since stimulated a worthwhile debate involving Messrs Mervin, Alexander and Persaud, this noted academician and theorist sought to apply a limited definition for which he cited no source. Worse yet, Mr Alexander selectively and conveniently cited a very small number of my examples and spouted innuendoes to propogandise Mr Burham as a democrat.
The PNC inflicted party paramountcy on Guyana and did so unapolgetically. According to Mr. Burnham, “It was also decided that the Party should assume unapologetically its paramountcy over the government which is merely one of its executive arms.”(Sophia Declaration 1974:11). Simultaneously, the party’s constitution had then stated that the Leader has supreme authority over every organ of the party and the party leader is privileged to exercise maximum leadership to ensure the party survived. If the Leader is the Supreme authority over all party organs, and the government, according to the Sophia Declaration is an executive arm of the PNC, then Burham had supreme authority over all party and government structures.
Let Mr Alexander tell this nation what is the relevance of Burham’s own statement at the 1974 Special Congress to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the PNC in power when he announced that paramountcy would be implemented “unapologetically.”
Yours faithfully,
Lloyd A. King
