With just under two weeks before the much anticipated PNCR Congress, a number of persons on Friday protested outside the headquarters of the party calling on Vincent Alexander, Party leader, Aubrey Norton and Sherwin Benjamin to recuse themselves from the Management Committee of the congress.
While the protester refused to speak to Village Voice News on why they are calling on these office holders to remove themselves their positions the messages on their placards card said it all. Some of the placards read: “disqualify Sherwain Benjamin and Vincent Alexander. Independent investigations needed into the removal of the CPU. Let the members pick their delegates.” Another placard reads, ‘Norton is a Candidate and a director.’
Sources in the PNCR are saying that a number of irregularities, are taking place in the nomination aspects of candidates for Leader of the Party. One source told the Village Voice News that Party Groups Chairs and Secretaries across the regions were being forced to nominate Norton for Leader. “Groups that were dormant for years were suddenly resurrected, placed on nomination forms,” one source related”. It is also being alleged that groups in some regions that never met for years were merged to make up numbers for Norton.
On Wednesday June 12, Roysdale Forde who was nominated for Leader of the PNCR by 19 plus Party Groups told the host of Conversation on Caribbean Power Jam Radio with Dr. Linda that he was not even nominated by his own group who failed to call a group meeting which is in keeping with the standing orders for party groups that they discuss the candidates for leader and vote on it.
This and a number of other irregularities may have triggered the protest on Friday. A source from the Roysdale Forde Campaign told Village Voice that they have written a number of letters to the General Secretary of the Party on a plethora of issues on the composition of the Congress Committee and the Accreditation Committee that are riddled with issues that are damning to the holding of a transparent PNCR Congress.