PNC to discuss relationship with REFORM component
Stabroek News
August 29, 2002
The PNC will discuss its relationship with the REFORM component at its next General Council meeting. The relationship between the bodies, formed for the March 2001 elections, should have been discussed at the just concluded PNC 13th Biennial Congress. It was one of the discussions that had to be postponed because of the time the elections of officers and central executive committee members took.
At a post-congress press conference the PNC announced that the party's General Council had been mandated to discuss the issue. PNC leader, Desmond Hoyte, has explained that among the issues that had to be addressed was the institutionalization of the alliance.
Stabroek News understands that the members of REFORM, headed by Stanley Ming with Jerome Khan as chairman, are to meet shortly to hammer out a definitive position on its relationship with the PNC.
Stabroek News understands that one of the recommendations made at the congress was for a name change of the party in its constitution from PNC to PNC/R with the members of the REFORM being free to either retain their membership of that body or to join the party.
Some of the leading members of REFORM have faded into the background including livewire investment banker Eric Phillips and Peter Ramsaroop who was critical of Hoyte's leadership and whom Stabroek News understands has indicated his intention to become inactive.