Dear Editor,
I have taken the liberty of acknowledging Dr. Stanley Paul’s letter in support of the current Party Leader’s continuation in office to offer my support for a different candidate in the spirit of respectful, but competitive, party politics.
A few paragraphs into his rambling advocacy of Aubrey Norton’s candidacy it was immediately apparent that the grassroots professor’s mission was not to educate, inform, encourage and motivate delegates to the PNC/R’s 22nd Biennial Congress to make informed and responsible decisions regarding the present, and future, trajectory of the party but to stoke divisions and strife, undermine unity and demean competent and visionary leadership.
In order to defend and promote a weak candidate who ranks poorly in almost every leadership metric – education, qualifications, experience, team-work and consensus development, strategic influence and alliance-building, vision and determination – and to ensure a weak, divided and directionless PNC/R that is incapable of challenging the PPP/C for leadership of the state. Because he is unable to elucidate Norton’s competencies, he has sought to reduce leadership values and characteristics to the least common denominator and to denigrate other leadership aspirants, who he claims, unlike Norton, have betrayed the grassroots by elevating themselves through hard work; academic, professional and business success; and excellence. It suggests that he would like to turn the PNC/R into a Trumpist party and to abandon the struggles and sacrifices of our fore-fathers for the privilege of eating grass.
For myself, I view Dr. Paul’s most important contribution as his unflattering distinction between the incumbent leader and his challengers. He proudly describes Norton as the “epitome” and “embodiment” of the grassroots, working-class and ordinary people. Norton is indeed ordinary, and grassroots and working-class identification are not accomplishments. Almost every worker aspires to be a supervisor, a manager or an owner just as every constable or private seeks to move up in rank and every academic wants to be a professor, and all want to have a good life.
According to John Maxwell, the world’s most influential leadership expert, a leader “must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.” No one doubts that Aubrey Norton, to his everlasting credit, is close to the party’s grassroots and working-class base; the difficulty is, and has always been, that he is not enough ahead to provide competent leadership.
It is abundantly clear that Paul and Norton do not share the values and interests of most party members and are incapable of promoting, or working to realise them. They seem to desire a situation where, among the blind the one-eyed man is king. They view other successful people as privileged, elitist, aristocratic and unable to relate to, and empathise with, others less successful and would exclude them from the party and stifle its growth.
Other PNC/R leaders, who were also Presidents of Guyana – Burnham, Hoyte and Granger – rejected such myopic thinking and quite often brought into the party many qualified and diverse persons because they understood, as Norton does not, that the party could not win or govern successfully without their contribution.
Many party stalwarts would recall that the Founder Leader did not promote division or exclusion but always sought to add to the party; he recruited the likes of Desmond Hoyte, Hubert Jack, Ranji Chandisingh, Vincent Teekah and some Hindu and Muslim leaders, who were similarly reviled then, as Paul is attempting to do now. Since then, other leaders have sought to promote the Reform, A Partnership for National Unity and APNU+AFC with the goal of broadening the party’s appeal and strategic alliances to achieve victory at the polls and to govern successfully.
I believe that under Norton’s unimaginative and uninspiring leadership the PNC/R would retreat into perpetual defeat and insignificance. I further believe, and I have seen, that Roysdale Forde is grounded with the people and has his eyes firmly on the prize and a destiny to mould, and possesses the requisite leadership abilities to grow, unite and direct the party successfully.
Yours truly,
Oscar Dolphin
