Stella Says…It is time for Corbin to face a disciplinary committee

by Stella Ramsaroop

(Originally published in Guyana's Kaieteur News on 07 September 2007)

For shame! It appears as if the PNC intends to continue with its plans to take disciplinary action against Team Alexander and other alleged party dissidents for “conduct unbecoming of party members” because they made a public statement to the press regarding their intentions to run against the party leader. Tsk-tsk.

This has to be the biggest joke of the PNC’s already extremely comical year. This opposition party, which has been the primary opposition party in Guyana for decades and the ruling party before that, is actually going to discipline it’s own members for taking a democratic approach to party elections.

Well if this PNC committee insists on being so damned funny, perhaps it will appreciate the comedy in putting Corbin in front of my one-woman disciplinary committee that I have just formed for the sole purpose of promoting truth and justice in the face of such gobbledygook from the PNC. I love the word gobbledygook.

I would have invited Sweet and Sensitive Freddie to join the committee, but he takes too long to come to a conclusion sometimes and he seems to be on every single committee in Guyana already. And since I didn’t know which Peeping Tom to contact – I decided to go this one alone.

We do not have all day so let us get this show on the road. Eh hem, this meeting is called to order and we bring Robert Corbin before the committee to answer for conduct unbecoming of a party leader. In short, Mr. Corbin, you are cited for being a lousy leader and the committee has produced a list of questions to which you must answer.

The specific charges at hand that have led us to this disciplinary action for conduct unbecoming a leader include, but are not limited to, a charge of sitting on you lazy butt and doing very little for years on end when your constituency needed an active leader.

You are charged with allowing power to go to your head and thereby forgetting the plight of your constituency. You are charged with falsely believing you should be the leader of the PNC for the rest of your life.

You are also charged with not smiling on television interviews and in photo ops for the press, having very little public persona and thereby making it seem like a visit to the dentist to have a tooth pulled would be far more desirable than to be a member of this party.

I move to begin questioning the party leader - and then I second the motion and the motion is passed without dissent. Hey, this is your type of democratic process, eh Corbin?

Tell the committee, Mr. Corbin, why have you sabotaged every party coalition (i.e. the Reform, One Guyana)? You are charged with not playing nice with your fellow politicians. What have you to say about the party’s failing relationships other supposedly allied parties?

Which prompts another question for you, Mr. Corbin, why are you so bent on staying in control when it is obviously not best for the party? You had your shot and failed miserably, so why not give someone else a chance to make something of the party since you could not?

Further, Mr. Corbin, please state to this committee any significant social or political endeavours the party has accomplished since you became party leader. For example, how has the lives of your constituency been improved as a result of your leadership? The Recall Legislation does not count since this was a joint political manoeuvre with the PPP and had absolutely nothing to do with the people.

Speaking of the PPP, Mr. Corbin, are you secretly making backroom deals with President Jagdeo in which you believe the PPP will give you something politically significant at some unspecified point in the future if the PNC just behaves itself by being a good little docile opposition party?

It would seem after much deliberation that you have in fact been sucked into a wormhole of power, Mr. Corbin, which has rendered you incapable of making the right decisions for the good of the party.

You have made the public irreversibly mistrust the PNC and you recent conduct (including your highly undemocratic speech at congress) proves you are an out of control leader who should be reigned in by the very leaders whom you have placed before a disciplinary committee.

Therefore, it is this committee’s decision that Mr. Corbin is to blame for the recent schism in the PNC and the current spike in the lack of public confidence because he should have just stepped down from his position in the first place and none of this would have happened.

It is also this committee’s conclusion that Team Alexander should not be blamed for this untimely collapse of the PNC. This old dinosaur has been on its last leg for a long time - and it is all thanks to Corbin.

As such, this committee has determined that the PNC committee is disciplining the wrong people. It is Corbin who should be answering to the disciplinary committee for his conduct – not the people who were trying to save the party.

This committee would also like to know if the PNC committee understands the consequences of disciplining party members for democratic conduct. If the PNC committee continues its action – they should be brought before a disciplinary committee too.

Email: StellaSays[at]gmail.com