The party is to hold a Special Congress on that date where the candidate is to be elected by delegates and it has been running a month-long series of public meetings in the lead-up, allowing the nominees to make their pitch to members and supporters.
At one such meeting yesterday at the North Ruimveldt Multilateral School, they were asked by an attendee if they were willing to explore the possibility of a consensus candidate and move on with a united front instead of competing against each other.
The question created a buzz among the candidates and the audience with some uncertainty about whether the question should have been allowed, before presidential hopeful James Bond was allowed to start with his response.
The young attorney said he was prepared to support whoever won but stated adamantly that he was not prepared to give way to anyone.
“Let it be known… I’m no quitter. I’m in it to win it. We’re going to show Guyana that without young people you can’t get anywhere, without young people you can’t win this 2011 elections…,” he declared to applause.
Party Vice-Chairman and attorney Basil Williams in his response noted that the process was almost complete and it made no sense to shift the goal post at this time.
“Perhaps persons who feel they’re in the background could indicate that they’re no longer prepared to continue the process and so we’d be able by that means to understand who’s in the forefront,” he said to laughter. But he added that he believed the process has been a “tremendous one.”
“It has reinvigorated and rejuvenated the party and I’m not prepared to second-guess the party on this process because for me it will be a fundamental change, a diversion, from what the party has instituted to say now that we should … look for a consensus candidate,” Williams stated.
Meanwhile, former finance minister Carl Greenidge cheekily stated that he was quite prepared to let the others step aside since he knew who was the frontrunner.
He continued that the question was one that he has encountered several times in the city but he believed the process had shown its merit.
“It has served to bring to the public that we have a range of articulate and skilled leaders interested in leading the party at a time when I think the public was being fed from the newspapers and elsewhere that no leaders of any quality could be commanded by the party,” he stated.
Former army chief of staff David Granger evinced some of the loudest cheers with his response.
“No event has scared the People’s Progressive Party/Civic over the last decade as the present presidential candidate process,” he declared.
According to Granger, the incumbent party was aware of the impact the process is having with the nominees exposing the conditions of people countrywide and was “running scared.” He said it was a democratic process and he “liked” it.
He dubbed it the “most important thing” to have happened to politics in the PNCR adding that it has strengthened the party.
“We don’t want our president to be chosen in a backroom by a show of hands, we want to sit down like this … and hear our candidates and make our own decision,” he said in a reference to the process being employed by the PPP to choose its presidential candidate.
Meanwhile, Dr Faith Harding, the lone female in the PNCR race, said the process was “the most exciting thing” to happen to the party in years and she too took a jab at the PPP stating that it now sought to include a female with the recent announcement of Gail Teixeira’s interest in becoming the candidate.
According to the former public service minister, the PNCR was not going to stop until Guyana was developed and became “the economic powerhouse of the Caribbean and the western hemisphere.”
The nominees were also questioned on their plans for youth, border security, restoring the Mayor and City Council to financial viability, human rights, and whether they supported the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Another meeting is scheduled for today at the Silver City Secondary School, Linden with another at the Mahdia Primary School, Region 8 tomorrow. The last is to be held in Kwakwani at a date still to be confirmed with all meetings starting at 5 pm.
