Hoyte will lead PNC into next elections
By Gitanjali Singh
PNC leader, Desmond Hoyte SC, will lead his party into the upcoming general elections, despite a decision by the party to initiate measures to address the succession issue. Hoyte told Stabroek News yesterday that "barring an accident" he would be leading the party into the upcoming elections. Hoyte said that he had been given a mandate by the party to lead it into next year and at the elections due by January 2001. Commenting on the general council decision, Hoyte said that he had decided to bring it into the open after the party seemed reluctant to deal with the issue as he had suggested it do when he addressed a leadership retreat at Linden in June. In that address, he said, the last point he made was that they should seek to identify new leaders. Hoyte explained that he had taken the initiative between 1992 and 1995 to bring a number of young people into the party with a view to them working to develop support and acceptance within the party and in the country as a whole. The PNC leader, explaining his reason for not anointing a successor, said he always felt that the person to succeed him should be thrown up by a process. He explained that the mechanism by which a successor was to be identified was in effect a search committee, which would identify a number of persons and that the Biennial Congress would elect the person to succeed him. When Hoyte acceded to the presidency in 1985 on the death of Forbes Burnham, his leadership of the party had to be confirmed by the Congress even though a joint meeting of the Cabinet and the party's central executive had decided that the leadership of the government and party should reside in one person. At the time Dr Ptolemy Reid was the deputy leader of the party. He stepped aside to allow Hoyte to be the leader of the party. It should be noted too that the year before, Reid had given up the office of prime minister to which Hoyte had been appointed. Stabroek News was yesterday able to contact two of the persons whose names were being mentioned as possible successors. Both expressed a willingness to serve the party in any position they were asked to. Deryck Bernard, a former minister of education, told this newspaper that he was prepared to serve the party in whatever capacity it desired him to serve. Bernard, who was absent from the general council meeting on Saturday, observed that the problem for the PNC was not a lack of talent but of ensuring that it organised itself to win the upcoming election. Commenting on the decision to initiative moves to identify a successor, Bernard said that the party had to modernise its processes. He said bringing the moves out into the open was in line with similar moves by political parties the world over to make their process transparent. But Bernard said that he would not like to see the party expend its energies on trying to identify a successor at the expense of the more important task of winning the upcoming elections. Attorney-at-law Raphael Trotman, whose name was also mentioned, said that he never harboured such an ambition nor had he worked for the party with that in mind. He said that at present he could not even begin to contemplate such a thought as he was not sure that the party was about to elect a new leader. Stating that he didn't even think that he was the most suitable candidate, Trotman said, however, that whatever the eventual outcome of the search for a successor, he would like to be involved in the leadership of the party. "I will abide by the decision of people and will serve under whomever they choose as a successor to Hoyte." Bernard was plucked from his post as university lecturer at the University of Guyana to serve as Hoyte's permanent secretary when he was made prime minister in 1985. He was appointed to a ministerial post after the December 1985 elections, which the PNC won. Bernard served as one of his party's three representatives on the Constitution Reform Commission and earned the respect of the other commissioners for his thoroughness in scheduling the public consultations and for the sharpness of his intellect during the discussions on the various issues. Trotman, who was appointed a parliamentarian after the 1997 elections, has gained a reputation for forging accommodations where these are possible as a member of the Special Select Committee on Constitution Reform and as a member of the PNC dialogue team.
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