PNCR turns up heat on Granger  

—rejects “unilateral” adoption of newly formed parties  

Executive and senior members of the PNCR, APNU’s major partner met last Wednesday and made a collective decision to reject what they described as David Granger’s recent “unilateral action” to accept the request of two newly formed parties to become members of APNU.

According to one prominent CEC member: “This is the last straw, we have given the Leader sufficient time to reflect and conform to the party’s constitution, instead he proceeds to unilaterally arrange for these two questionable ‘Parties’ to be part of the APNU. This is beyond disrespect and fully rejected,” the executive who asked not be named told the Village Voice News.

Granger in a media release last week announced that former government ministers, Jaipaul Sharma and Tabitha Sarabo-Halley have both formed new political parties and joined the APNU. Sharma previously was a member of the a Justice For All Party, while Sarabo-Halley was a member of the Working Peoples Alliance. Both of these parties were members of the APNU coalition.

In the statement Granger said the Executive Council of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) said it accepted the applications from the two new political parties to join the ten-year-old Partnership.

The new parties – Equal Rights and Justice Party (ERJP) and Guyana Nation Builders Movement (GNBM) – are led by former ministers in the APNU+AFC coalition administration, Mr.  Jaipaul Sharma and Mrs. Tabitha Sarabo-Halley, respectively. “APNU, next month, will observe the tenth anniversary of its establishment in July 2011. The Partnership participated on its own in the General and Regional Elections in 2011 and in a coalition with the Alliance For Change (AFC) in 2015 and 2020. The APNU+AFC Coalition formed the Government from 2015 to 2020. The Justice For All Party (JFAP) and Working People’s Alliance withdrew from APNU after GRE 2020. The new parties join with the Guyana Action Party (GAP), National Front Alliance (NFA) and People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR)

The CEC member said it should be remembered that the JFA and the WPA political parties walked away from the APNU because of “Granger’s unilateral and non-consultative attitude to decision making. What next did he do? Without any consultation with his own Party and APNU, he encourages the formation of these two ‘Parties’ whose presumptive leaders are former members of the JFA and the WPA.”

Accordingly, one CEC member called it “an incidental convenience, an insult to APNU, the CEC, the PNCR, and a sham arrangement with no substance which is rejected”.

The CEC member said it is no secret that the CEC has chided Granger on several occasions, to desist from unilaterally making and then publicising decisions without the consent of these bodies. According to another CEC member, “what has emerged, enabled by officers of the Party, is a small clique (including personalities who are not members of the CEC, and in some cases not even members of the PNCR) who meet and make decisions for the CEC and APNU to rubber stamp as approved.”  Such is not to be tolerated.”

According to other sources, there is no doubt that Granger’s popularity is diminishing rapidly within the Party, locally and internationally, and his moves are seen as desperate attempts to consolidate his power over the Party and influence winning the upcoming elections by all means necessary.