This is by no means the most propitious moment for there to occur a publicly-aired testy exchange between two high-profile members of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), the essence of which appears to amount to no more than a spurt of bilateral cat-sparring, as the Party prepares to elect a new Leader.
Here, one must pause to make a point which, obvious as it is, can become lost in the course of the cut and thrust of spats of this kind. The constitution of Guyana makes provision for a political Opposition. The PNCR, as of now, constitutes, overwhelmingly, the political opposition. That makes the PNCR’s business much more than its own. Its postures and policies are matters of national relevance, national import. Contextually, its constituency extends beyond its card-bearing members. The PNCR, doubtless, is aware of this.
For the PNCR, there is the matter of the imminent election of a new Leader. That is an internal Party matter though this is not to say that it is not, also, a matter of wider national interest. After that, there is also, for the PNCR, the matter of the fashioning and execution of an agenda that takes account of the fact that the electoral cycle goes around pretty quickly.
Two things need to be said about the recent public ‘exchange’ between former PNCR General Secretary Aubrey Norton and serving PNCR-led Coalition Member of Parliament Roysdale Forde. First, the exchange seemed, in its own right, not to merit room in the public space. Their Party has ‘bigger fish to fry’ at this time. That is why, to some, it came across as what one might call ‘bad form’ for a Party which (as has already been mentioned) has responsibilities that go beyond what might be regarded as its own political constituency.
In situations like the recent Norton/Forde ‘exchange’ there is always the likelihood of the kind of escalation that distracts from the Party’s substantive agenda.
Norton and Forde, are, respectively, a Party veteran and recognized leader, and a perceived ‘rising star.’ Accordingly, one question that probably arises here may have to do with whether what we are witnessing may not be a bout of generational jousting. If that is what it is the PNCR is a sufficiently experienced political party to recognize that these kinds of distracting ‘brush fires’ can sometimes trigger more damaging internal conflagrations. That is the last thing that the PNCR needs at this time. It is for the Party to see that it does not metamorphose into the kind of full-blown public to-ing and fro-ing that is not unheard of in situations of this kind.
Mr. Norton is a former General Secretary of the PNCR and an experienced political operator. His political style is assertive. It is a style that attracts admirers, as it does, detractors. Mr. Norton, on the basis of the available evidence, is usually prepared to tightly embrace and expressively articulate his convictions.
Mr. Forde is a newcomer to frontline PNCR Party politics. He comes across as a reflective and thoughtful individual. His ‘politics’ is also underpinned by strong views, though he is not, in a political sense, as demonstrably combative as is Mr. Norton. After the government changed hands last year he was afforded one of the Coalition’s seats in the National Assembly. Perhaps not insignificantly, his decided inexperience in what one might call frontline Party politics notwithstanding, he was named Acting Opposition Leader for a brief period, recently, in the absence of the substantive post-holder, Mr. Joseph Harmon, from the country. A case can be made for suggesting that even this brief, temporary appointment may suggest that Mr. Forde is well thought of in the upper echelons of the PNCR.
It has been suggested, too, that the recent Norton/Forde ‘exchange’ may well mirror the reality of the PNCR’s arrival at the point of the need to frontally address the matter of ‘the changing of the guard.’ That is, decidedly, a PNCR decision.
It is the timing of that circumstance that the Party must be mindful of. The PNCR is going through one of those ‘moments’ in its history that it must put behind it with due haste. Notably, as the country’s major Opposition Party it has a critical substantive role to play in the correcting of an awkward constitutional circumstance that currently impairs important decision-making at the national level, notably in the matter of the filling of key positions in the country’s Public Service.
From the standpoint of its own political interest the PNCR is, as well, doubtless aware that the electoral cycle travels at considerable speed.
What, of late, has been represented in some quarters as a ‘spat’ between Messrs Norton and Forde does not merit escalation. One senses, further, that, between the two men there is a greater interest in the good of the Party that they both serve. That is a good sign.
