Dear Editor,
The Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID) condemns the removal of James McAllister, an Opposition People’s National Congress (PNC) Member of Parliament (MP), from the Parliament of Guyana by Opposition and People’s National Congress (PNC) Leader, Mr Robert Corbin.
McAllister and a group of senior members, led by then Vice Chairman Vincent Alexander unsuccessfully challenged Corbin for the leadership at the party’s 2007 internal elections. They were subsequently placed before a disciplinary committee, which CGID viewed as Mr Corbin’s Kangaroo court.
The arbitrary removal of a Member of Parliament who was elected by the people, at the whim of one man − the Opposition Leader − overturns the will of the electorate and is an assault on democracy. I am shocked that Mr Corbin’s leadership is characterized by arrogance and dictatorship, tendencies which jeopardize Guyana’s tenuous democratic dispensation.
CGID believes that the recall of James McAllister provides a keen insight into the PNC leader’s domineering approach to governing and antipathy for democratic values. No one with such sentiments should ever again be entrusted with the presidency of Guyana, which Mr Corbin sought running against President Bharrat Jagdeo in the 2006 election but lost. Both of them have these same dictatorial tendencies.
On December 3, the Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr Ralph Ramkarran, announced that Mr Corbin, the Representative of the List of candidates for the PNC, on December 2, officially notified him that McAllister had been recalled. Consequently, Ramkarran declared McAllister’s seat vacant, in accordance with Article 156(3) (c) of the constitution − the Constitutional Amendment Act of 2007. Known as the ‘recall legislation,’ this amendment was enacted by the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government in 2007, with support from Corbin and a majority of his party’s MPs. The legislation enables the representatives of parliamentary parties to direct the Speaker of the National Assembly to declare a seat vacant once a party expresses a loss of confidence in a member.
As CGID’s Director of Communications Jevon Suralie noted recently, before the enactment of this bill, CGID expressed serious reservations about its undemocratic provisions. We recommended to the PNC that the bill be amended to require that, upon a declaration of no confidence in an MP by a representative of a party’s list, the Speaker should cause a special election to be held in the constituency which that MP represents. This would allow the people to be the final arbiters of the recall of their elected representative.
However, the PNC never even considered this proposal. Mr Corbin was determined to work with President Jagdeo to tinker with the constitution to exact revenge against those who dared to challenge him, even within the context of the party’s democratic electoral process.
It is a fact that President Jagdeo and Mr Corbin agreed to this legislation to excise independent-minded MPs who do not tow their party’s line or follow the dictates of their leader. It was enacted after Corbin was challenged for the leadership in 2007, so that Vincent Alexander and his fellow challengers could not pull off a Raphael Trotman and Khemraj Ramjattan. Both attorneys, Trotman and Ramjattan, then PNC and PPP MPs, respectively, left their respective parties in 2005 to form the AFC, but refused to resign their seats in Parliament.
McAllister’s removal demonstrates that Mr Corbin is petty, visionless and uninspiring. His leadership has been catastrophic for the PNC. With him at the helm, its prospects for electoral viability will remain elusive.
Mr Corbin assumed the leadership in 2002 after Hoyte died of a heart attack. Since then, the party underwent a serious split in 2005, leading to the departure of scores of young leaders, including Raphael Trotman, a formidable young leader who was being groomed by Hoyte to assume the reins of leadership. Trotman then co-founded the Alliance for Change (AFC). In the 2006 general elections, the PNC lost five seats in Parliament to the AFC. It also lost several regional seats to both the AFC and the ruling PPP.
As if allegations of a “compromised” 2007 party election hadn’t done enough damage to Mr Corbin’s credibility and legitimacy and the PNC’s image generally, since then, a leadership culture of undemocratic practices has become more entrenched in the party. Mr Corbin has pursued a vendetta against the members that supported Alexander in 2007, and his undemocratic propensities have led to a brain drain of the majority of the PNC’s intelligentsia.
He has not conceptualized or articulated a new vision as an alternative to the incumbent PPP government. Thus, he has lost the confidence of a majority of his constituents and members. At this juncture, when the PPP continues to trample on the rights of the African minority; tolerates torture by the Joint Services; is associated with massive corruption, Mr Corbin’s top priority is the removal of James McAllister from Parliament. How sad. The PNC leader is incompetent and irrelevant. He does not deserve the vote of the people at any other election.
If the PNC hopes to remain a relevant force in Guyanese politics, it must remove Mr Corbin from its leadership, broaden its political base into a genuine, formidable, multi-ethnic party, recruit a new generation of bright, young leaders and articulate a new vision for modernity and development in Guyana.
I could not have been more candid.
Yours faithfully,
Rickford Burke
President Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID)
