Despite PNCR leader David Granger and other party members labeling the tumultuous recently-held 18th Biennial Congress a “success,” it is being viewed as a step backwards by political analysts, with Granger being seen as slow to take action to reassure supporters and the PPP as the big winner.
“I feel one step was made forward in the past six months, but the aftermath of the Congress is clearly two steps backward. The PPP and the oligarchs with connections to government contracts are the biggest winners. The PNCR congress appears to have achieved what the Rodney COI (Commission of Inquiry) could not,” economist and APNU supporter Tarron Khemraj told Stabroek News.
“While there was no violence at the Congress and the leadership has dismissed allegations of vote rigging, the firing of a gunshot and the loud protestations of disenfranchisement were the worst kind of public relations disaster for the PNCR,” former Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran said in his Sunday Stabroek column, which appears today.
“The PNCR congress has come and gone, but the major issues that faced the party,