Perhaps a bit belatedly, I would like to comment on the matter of the future leadership of the PNC which will be decided by the membership of that party at its forthcoming congress.

In the past history of this party, who was to be the leader was never a big issue. Linden Forbes Sambson Burnham was leader and there was no question about that. Then Hugh Desmond Hoyte was positioned by Burnham and he took over. The matter of leadership was never a subject over which the membership of the PNC needed to lose sleep.

But times are different now. None of the present leaders of this party have the sort of authority which would make it possible for him to identify his successor. Every contender has to get up and show his merit. He or she has to prove that he or she has a better right to leadership because of his or her superior merit. Furthermore, at this point in its existence, there is obviously no one man or woman who can claim to have the skill and ability necessary to lead this party alone.

Burnham was able to do it because he was an especially gifted person. Hoyte tried and got away with certain unilateral things because of his being without a credible challenger.

In these times however the people who seem to be interested in stepping into the party leadership do not have the skill, experience or personal charisma of a Burnham. Neither do they have the intellectual ability or personal authority of a Hoyte. Therefore, the incoming leader has got to be part of a team and be able to recognise himself as being part of a unit.

That leadership team will need inputs from every possible source of knowledge or talent which it can find including all the Hammies, the Robert Williams, the Phillip Bynoes, Aubrey Nortons, in fact, from everybody who knows what the party's struggle is all about and who have a real interest in making use of this last opportunity to really mobilise a master crew for the PNC before the battle for its very survival as a major political force in this country really begins.