The People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) – the largest political party in the main Parliamentary Opposition in Guyana – plans to reenergize its efforts towards ensuring opposition parties have meaningful involvement in Caribbean Community (CARICOM) activities.
Making this disclosure today was the PNCR’s Leader, Aubrey Norton, who was at the time, responding to the perceived dearth of Guyanese, opposition-fueled, external lobbying at events hosted by regional and international blocs.
The Coalition opposition has been vocal locally about the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C)’s management of the pandemic, and its handling of the oil and gas sector. It has also accused the Irfaan Ali-led regime of discrimination, corruption, and the alleged enabling of “anti-poor” policies in its almost $553B, 2022 budget. More importantly, the opposition has bemoaned the government’s alleged “sidelining” of the coalition in local events and deliberations on issues of national importance.
The Leader said that CARICOM is aware of the Opposition’s concerns, noting that bloc “reps” are in receipt of the party’s position. Norton did not confirm if the Opposition would be attending the ongoing CARICOM Summit in Belize to lobby. He did, however, spoke of the reactivation of a mechanism that was initiated by past PNCR Leader, Robert Corbin, to ensure Opposition parties’ involvement in activities organized by the regional bloc.
He said, “Well, we have been sending to CARICOM reps our position. As it relates to the CARICOM Summit, a while back, particularly when Robert Corbin was Leader of the Party, there were decisions made at the CARICOM level for the involvement of Opposition Leaders and people of the opposition in CARICOM activities. It is my intention to work to reactive that and to have a kind of a formal relationship with CARICOM. I believe, like that document that was produced a while back, that there should be an institutionalized mechanism for the opposition to participate in CARICOM activities and I will work to assiduously put that back in place.”
In June 2004, former Antigua Prime Minister and then-CARICOM Chairman, Baldwin Spencer, while visiting Guyana, met with former Opposition Leader Corbin. In those talks, the need for more interactive and regular dialogue with CARICOM Heads of Government and other forms of participation in the activities of CARICOM by Regional Parliamentary Opposition groups was raised.
Spencer was quoted in a June 26, 2004, Guyana Chronicle article saying that greater involvement of opposition parties would broaden and deepen the democratic process and make it more transparent.
Norton said that aside from external lobbying, the PNCR continues to put forward its concerns to the government through media conferences and statements to the press. He acknowledged that more “political actions” are needed, but only after the party has exhausted all available channels.
“I believe that we have been speaking to the government through our press conference [and] through [other] various means, [but] we’ll at the same time be mobilizing and organizing our people. We believe that the PPP has had ample opportunity to respond to the concerns we have raised, and we intend to take this to another political level, but we want to be sure, that before we act, we must be satisfied that we use those channels that exist and once those channels bare no fruits, then we’ll be on solid ground when we take the requisite political actions to have them rectified,” he said.
