AFC backs harmon, PNC/R wants norton
…as AFC backs Harmon, PNC/R wants Norton
Jan 09, 2022 -- Source -- Kaieteur News Online -- https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...rship-in-parliament/
Kaieteur News – The coalition, A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC), which currently has as its substantive Parliamentary Opposition Leader, Joseph Harmon, is split on the way forward as it relates to replacing that Constitutional Office holder, with newly elected Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R), Aubrey Norton.
This position unfolded, following Norton’s announcement that the PNC/R’s Central Executive Committee (CEC)—the party’s highest internal decision making body—had concluded that he be positioned as a sitting Member of Parliament of the PNC/R, replacing Harmon as Opposition Leader.
Substantive Opposition Leader, Joseph Harmon
Harmon lost to Norton who secured the party’s Leadership from David Granger in a landslide victory during the PNC/R’s recently concluded Biennial Congress. A leadership contest that also included Dr. Richard Van West Charles.
According to the party’s official elections results 1,209 of the 3,000 delegates that were registered to vote, gave Harmon 245 and Norton 900. Dr. Van West Charles secured only 64 votes.
This led to the decision being taken by the PNC/R’s CEC—since announced by Norton—but has since been met with pushback, with AFC Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan publicly declaring that the nine seats in Parliament for which his party controls are in support of Harmon remaining Opposition Leader.
Ramjattan is quoted in another section of the media confirming this much saying, “my nine members of parliament have confidence in Harmon at this stage; he has done nothing that we shouldn’t have confidence in him.”
The AFC, one faction of the APNU+AFC Parliamentary opposition, had initially voted in support of Harmon for the position after a new session of Guyana’s Parliament was declared open by President Irfaan Ali in 2020.
According to the AFC Leader, his position is that “whatever the law is and constitutional regime is, I am living the rule of law and the rule of the constitution. If the constitution leads to prescription I am asking for adherence to the prescription.”
Newly elected Leader of the PNC/R, Aubrey Norton
The news report contended Ramjattan’s position as, “unless Mr. Harmon wants to resign or just cause is shown why he should be replaced by way of a constitutionally provided no-confidence motion, there is no good reason to call for his removal and he should remain as Opposition Leader for the next five years.”
It should be noted too that despite Norton’s pronouncement that, “The Party Central Executive (Committee) has decided that the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Party should be one person… it is not that it is I who believe that, it is the Central Executive that met, discussed it and arrived at that conclusion.” This is purportedly being met with pushback from some sections of the party.
AFC Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan
Harmon in an official statement to the media on Friday reminded that, “the main Parliamentary Opposition is the APNU+AFC coalition and consists of 31 Members of Parliament.”
To this end, he reminded that, “the APNU Partnership has an established structure and if the executive of a party in the partnership has a position and they wish to express that position, they should follow the established procedures.”
Harmon used the occasion to remind publicly that, “the Office of the Leader of the Opposition is a constitutional office and is consequently governed by the constitution.”
This, in addition to an unsigned statement released to the media yesterday purportedly from “Members” reminding that “in 2011 at the birth of the APNU a collective decision was made as to who would be head of the list. In 2015 a collective decision was made as to who would be head of the list when the Alliance for Change coalesced with APNU.”
In 2020, the APNU+AFC agreed that the head and the deputy head of the list would be David Granger and Khemraj Ramjattan respectively.
The unsigned PNC/R members’ statement released by an R. Critchlow posits, “the members of APNU have had no reason to question the abilities of David Granger and Khemraj Ramjattan as Head and Deputy Head of the list of the APNU+AFC. We have had no reason to question the leadership of Joseph Harmon as Leader of the Opposition and we have had no reasons to question the abilities of any Member of Parliament.”
Norton in espousing the PNC/R’s position on Friday explained that one of the arguments made by the PNC/R’s Central Executive is that it has been the convention with the second argument being “that it provides for better coordination and control of the activities of the Party and for better strategising to ensure efficacy.”