The PNC succession
There are several reasons why the fact that the succession to Mr Desmond Hoyte as leader of the People's National Congress is on the agenda should not be surprising. In the first place, Mr Hoyte is not a young man. Moreover, a few years ago he had major surgery and though his condition now seems stable given the stresses and strains of political life this makes him more vulnerable. Secondly, the PPP transition to an energetic young President who was not part of the melee in the sixties and does not bring that baggage with him increases the pressure for change in the PNC. Thirdly, there were some in the party who were not happy with the way he handled Mr Aubrey Norton though others feel that given Mr Norton's behaviour he had no alternative. Also, as Mr Hoyte is aware, some senior persons in the party are not happy with his negative attitude to the possibility of an executive power sharing arrangement. Not everyone in the party, too, has been happy with Mr Hoyte's perceived truculent and confrontational attitude since the 1997 elections. Yet Mr Hoyte is clearly still the most prestigious person in the party. Though the election that kept him in power in 1985 after the death of President Burnham was rigged he earned widespread respect later for his introduction of the Economic Recovery Programme in the late eighties when the economy was at its lowest ebb and his general liberalisation of what had in some ways become a closed society, and then the transition to free and fair elections. Though he was under immense pressure from the financial institutions and western governments to move in this direction these developments were not inevitable and Mr Hoyte is entitled to be acknowledged as the man who presided over the return to democracy and an open society, however, halting that progress may have been. Indeed the fact that the party was able to attain over 40 per cent of the vote in the 1992 elections surprised most analysts and given the disastrous economic record of the government for the two previous decades must be seen as testimony either to the strength of ethnic voting patterns or to the fact that Mr Hoyte had created new hope by his radical reversal of policy or a combination of both. Mr Hoyte has explained that he had himself put the issue of the succession on the agenda at a leadership retreat in Linden in June. At the recent general council meeting it came up again and he was given a mandate to lead the party at the next elections. However, the succession remains to be settled. Critics in the party say Mr Hoyte raised the issue himself to pre-empt a challenge. Perhaps the truth is there is no established challenger or successor. There are certainly executive members of the party who have expressed the view privately that what they describe as Mr Hoyte's truculence and irritability will harm the party electorally and that a new, younger person might have a better chance but those dissatisfactions, such as they are, have not crystallised. Certainly, no specific person has mounted a challenge. Mr Hoyte has said that the mechanism by which a successor will be identified is in effect a search committee which will identify candidates and that the Biennial Congress will elect the successor. Analysts believe that at this time the party veteran, Robert Corbin, despite his long absence from politics while studying law, would still be the favourite though others say his strong identification with previous rigged elections would be against him. Mr Raphael Trotman, though well liked, is seen as too young and Mr Deryck Bernard does not push his claims. Nor does Mr Vincent Alexander, though he has long experience in the party and is respected as intelligent and balanced. Mr Winston Murray is also a credible candidate though he too has been immersed in legal studies. So it seems the search for a successor will continue. Mr Hoyte has indicated that he does not propose to annoint a successor who must emerge `through a process'. However, the finding of a suitable candidate is now clearly on the agenda. 
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