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PNCR ready to embrace key players on national consensus
Opposition Leader Robert Corbin announced yesterday, that his party will be embarking on an outreach to all stakeholders in order to build a consensus for national development.
“If indeed there are individuals and groups who are not interested in peace, prosperity and an improved standard of living for our people, then the PNCR will have no choice but to proceed without them,” Corbin told reporters at his party's weekly press conference yesterday.
“Suffice it to say that no individual or group will be permanently locked out of this process. Whenever they are ready, they will be welcomed.”
Corbin said that his party welcomed the public debate on the merits and demerits of the various proposals and ideas of reforming the nature of governance in Guyana and believes that this is a good and necessary foundation for real change.
He urged all Guyanese, regardless of political persuasion, to discuss these matters so that there could be a broad national consensus.
Corbin said that the PNCR has observed the “negative attitude by a particular stakeholder” who he said is trying without success to devalue the debate by distorting and misrepresenting the positions of his party on governance in Guyana .
Clarifying the party's position, the Opposition Leader said the PNCR has repeatedly stated that its position on shared governance has no relationship to “achieving office through the back door”.
“Winning elections is not inconsistent with our position on shared governance,” he said. “We are seeking a much more far-reaching and profound political reform which takes the debate well past the old and tired propaganda of those who have no intention of changing their ways.”
Corbin said that the PNCR firmly believes that the time has come for the nation to start the process to unshackle itself from the bondage of poverty and underdevelopment.
“We know that for this process to succeed there must be created in this country a spirit of genuine inclusiveness,” he said. “This can only be achieved with fundamental reform of the present system of governance.”
Corbin stated that the recent PNCR Biennial Congress concluded that Guyana 's political system and culture has exploited the differences and distinctions among its people, for partisan political gain but with no real benefit to either the individual political parties or to the nation.
He had said at the Congress that solving Guyana 's myriad development problems cannot be the task of the PNCR alone, or the PPP/C, to the exclusion of all others.
He had urged all to close the chapter on the past and to give honour and recognition where it is due.
Corbin had said to achieve a realistic development programme, the PNCR must be prepared to meet with all stakeholders around the table and fashion a mutually agreeable national programme that addresses the concerns of all.
He had thrown out an unconditional offer to all Guyanese and Guyanese organisations of like mind to work for that national programme.
“We will work for an understanding with any political party, any political organisation, any social organisation, any non governmental organisation; and, any group or individuals, even those from within the People's Progressive Party, who are willing to negotiate, in good faith, the details of our platform for the transformation of the country. We make this offer without precondition,” he had stated.
He said that the PNCR is ready to enter arrangements with other parties and groups who will share his party's development platform by offering to share executive authority before a general election, or after a general election.
Corbin declared that a PNCR-led coalition will undertake to negotiate and implement the basis of a consensual Economic Policy Framework that is based on the maximum participation and support of all stakeholder groups.
