Even the weak smattering of applause that came after David Granger declared he had requested the names of Norton and Lawrence to be extracted for Parliament, we contend, was way too gratuitous.
Any affirmation of a politician whose mission is to cast a defining shadow over a Party that has roundly rejected him as leader, by holding it hostage to laws that are just the right degree of porous for a villain to manipulate himself into perpetual power, is bad for both Party and the democracy under which the Cooperative Republic is intended to strive.
Legitimacy, we’ll leave to those who profess legal acumen but as an onlooker, it’s hard not to compare David Granger’s manipulation of THE LIST – which is intended to benefit the Political Party as the non-controlling arm Government – to some leader in exile, hoping that his actions which should be made in consultation with others may fade in to some type of normalcy, if he remains in some calculated self-imposed ostracism.
The sigh of relief exhaled by the Party after some collective handwringing about whom he would choose for Parliament is exactly the partisan nervous breakdown that tickles his scheming fancy…is consensus thinking.
But even he knows the message Norton’s trouncing of him and other Candidates conveyed – and would have been overtly malevolent if Norton’s name was not amongst ‘his picks for Parliament’.
The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power…
Don’t get us wrong. We’re not saying Granger is great at all. But even when he’s not strictly intentional, he manages to invoke some Shakespearean villainy.
Hanging on to the title ‘Representative of the List’ gives him the power to determine who represents the people…the entire nation.
The expectation of someone holding that much national fate in his hands is that he would use that office to send persons to Parliament who are representative of what the institution is intended for.
The Party should be functionally structured to execute its ideology which must mesh with the economic and political needs of the nation….in its entirety.
Members of Parliament should be selected from Mister Granger’s list with the express intention of them being able to participate in national law making and overseeing the mechanics of government, to ensure it serves the purpose for which it is intended.
This means that he has to be intentionally selective when deciding who would best serve his Party at this level and, moreover, the country, as its other arm of Government.
And, even though he has chosen the office and has not been chosen for it, his fiduciary responsibility remains that of selecting, rather than picking, personnel – which would imply a measure of due diligence.
It’s not uncommon for citizens to seek high moral tone and an unspeckled public record in those who represent them – and we’re thinking that Granger would know this.
We’re thinking that he would know the political fodder that could be generated by him fielding candidates with a documented on- and -off relationship with the truth, a litany of complaints against their looseness with public funds, records of statements that tarnish, rather than highlight, the Party and its political positions …
and as the holder of the office that can prevent the selection of personnel that would cast a pall upon his Party and the nation’s Opposition, he would be committed to, dedicated to, ensuring that his wisdom would steer him to the best candidates, for the best overall chances for Party and Nation.
And perceived loyalty couldn’t be a better platform on which to host some wholesale gumming up of the works. It provides more than adequate cover for one man with an ignoble mission, with propensity and now opportunity to ensure that his record of failure is never surpassed by anyone’s success.
It would be so easy to select someone for the high office of Parliament who comes prepackaged with past misdeeds.
What a golden opportunity to graft existing blemishes onto this cause – the selection of an MP… and, in so doing, steer thinking more to failure than success when the selectee comes toting some public service failure.
The furies are now less covert for this Representative of the List.
Since he abandoned his Party and supporters during an election recount, Granger has worked assiduously at meeting the definition of a moral incontinent…is the thinking.
And, after his grudging relinquishment of Leadership, it’s now impossible to pretend that he means well…and sees the Party as an ever evolving, continuously moving, vehicle to transport methods to meet the politics of the times.
He has now settled in to plotting (pun intended) the course of the PNC with a shameless exuberance that should be forewarning to Party Leadership…
and a signal that the laws in the Representation of the People Act (ROPA) 12.1 pg28/209 relief should be looked at for some relief from impending sabotage….is the thinking.
And, concurrent with that should be a reconstruction of methods of operation for the Party Agenda.
The constant reference to the past being better and the future being best if we reverted to the past is the formula for the stagnation that besets the PNCR, which seems to miss this during its periodic Operation Evaluation…ahem.
By now, there are things that should be identified as not only obsolete but inherently harmful to progress. Bickering, as a political weapon, is responsible for self-inflicted wounds. And terse talk laced with blame, delivered through gnashing teeth and dispatched with warring finger pointing is not the stuff that creates inroads.
Practitioners of look – back politics should know by now that their strategy ends badly when the motivation is merely to emulate what Mr. X would have done if he were here; presupposing that all political problems are solved with an invariable solution.
They are a brothel keeper’s nightmare is the analogy- because they don’t know which fantasy they want to act out.
And, that their fantasy of choice exists in a time capsule, worked only for that moment, is difficult to convey to politicians whose vision is sucked into the politics of nostalgia, guided by the strategies of yore.
A wandering thought, a pertinent aside, reminds me that tyrants often sprang from the fringes of artistocracy ….
In Guyana, back when current older leaders were young men, that aristocracy was the middle- class living person who lived in the more socially desired parts of Georgetown and benefited from the implied status of that social platform.
If the PNC wants to reshape itself, it has to remove its Bad Faith Ambassador, that latent aristocrat, the guy whose desire to control The List includes every element of perfidiousness- up to and not excluding sabotage of Party which, by extension, is sabotage of country.
Confident operations are futuristic not nostalgic.
Dusting off the old blue print and deploying it under the guise of operations manual guarantees yet another excursion down the beaten path of failure.
About four months in to what was once exhilarating promise, hope has degenerated to a mere glimmer.
The journey down that all too familiar path that circumvents success seems to be well on its way, as yardsticks to measure progress are retrieved with their old readings of false positives and false equivalencies, guiding the path.
But we remain hopeful, shunning worry – which seems never to inspire enough outrage to generate requisite activism.
Despite all that is being said to the contrary, we’re still hoping that there’s a core that can get to Leadership to give them a truthful report of their standing as the nation’s Opposition.
We’re still confident that there’s a core that remembers the failure of its predecessor – in Government – and will compare those pitfalls at this point in the journey candidly and without reservation.
It’s early enough to tell the Opposition that they are public servants and not private business owners. These are different goals but of necessity, if the path is to success and not around it.
It’ll take the resolve of those who have access to the ‘Inner Circle’ which is ludicrous on its face for an office constituted to serve the public.
But whatever the solution, it’s time to implement it.