IN POLITICS they say, particularly party politics, all things are possible. For the major opposition parties of Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana they are currently finding out how possible it is for once very close leadership colleagues to also publicly demonstrate bitterness and hostility against each other - much to the distress of their loyal followers and the amusement of supporters of governing parties.

Both in Trinidad and Tobago and in Guyana, splits in the hierarchical structures of the opposition United National Congress-Alliance (UNC-A) and People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) have deteriorated to levels that expose serious doubts about their capacity to wrest state power from the respective governing parties-People’s National Movement (PNM) and People’s Progressive Party (PPP).

As this article was being written, the UNC-A’s founder-leader Basdeo Panday remained a pale shadow of the once very charismatic and crafty politician who had managed to successfully lead his party, across a traditional race-based electoral divide, to replace the PNM that had grown accustomed to holding the reins of state power since 1956.

As of last week, Panday was facing a serious threat of legal action from his once erstwhile colleague, the flamboyant Jack Warner, a name deeply associated with regional and international football.

Warner, a popular parliamentarian of the UNC-A, of which he is a leading financier, was accused by Panday of being in collusion with the Manning administration to undermine opposition unity by fostering divisions within the party, including working to remove him, Panday, from the leadership helm.

While Warner was consulting last Wednesday with a high-level legal team, including British Queen’s Counsel Allan Newman and Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, (the latter had served as Attorney General in a Panday-led UNC administration), Guyana’s Opposition Leader, Robert Corbin was confirming his determination to defend his leadership of the PNCR at its two-day 16th Biennial Congress which got underway on Friday to conclude last evening.

Murray vs Corbin

In Guyana, Corbin, now in his second term as head of the PNCR, was displaying confidence of victory to retain the leadership against a group of some five challengers, whose nominations had been announced over a week ago, although withdrawals were expected before the official start of the congress.

However, his confidence may have been contrived to blunt the impact of a surprised late initiative by four of his slate of challengers to withdraw and leave Winston Murray, the party’s former chairman, as the sole challenger to Corbin.

Murray, of Indian descent, had served in ministerial positions in the governments of both Burnham and Hoyte and has acquired a reputation for political reconciliation and inclusion.

The prevailing thinking as the congress got underway, was that if the show of ’unity’ of expediency holds -evidently to the disadvantage of Corbin-Murray could well emerge as the stunning victor with hopes of fostering a new image of a party that badly needs it-an image likely to pose a more serious challenge to the PPP and current administration of President Bharrat Jagdeo.

The marked difference in the leadership politics of the UNC-A and PNCR is that in the case of the latter, allegations of electoral malpractices have kept surfacing. On the other hand, a dictatorial style stubborn opposition to reconciliation have been constant claims against the UNC-A’s Panday. Now both Corbin and Panday are facing the mantra of ’time for leadership change’.

The PNC has long become identified with rigged elections under its late founder-leader, Forbes Burnham and his successor, the late Desmond Hoyte, to maintain a firm grip on state power for 24 years-from 1968 to 1992.

Among the major parties of the Caribbean Community, the PNC, as originally known before its ’Reform’ attachment prior to the1992 election that marked the restoration of electoral democracy, had acquired the unflattering reputation of having made electoral malpractice a fine political art.

It has been consistent in its rejection of accusations of rigged elections to achieve and sustain state power, even in the face of documented reports from national, regional and international monitors of elections in the country.

Ironically, with the spread of its internal conflicts over policies and leadership qualities, it found itself on the defensive against electoral rigging arrangements in the compilation of the register of voters for its previous 15th biennial congress. For last week’s16th biennial congress, the charges of electoral malpractices were even more fierce and threatening for incumbent leader Corbin, with the odds still in his favour.

At the 15th congress, Corbin, who as Minister of National Mobilisation under the presidency of Forbes Burnham, faced a leadership challenge from Vincent Alexander, a longstanding representative of the party on the Guyana Elections Commission and currently Registrar of the University of Guyana.

At the time of writing, the indications from some party insiders still pointed in favour of Corbin retaining the leadership, although such optimism may not have given serious consideration to the impact of the withdrawals of all challengers, minus Murray, for the leadership in a straight fight. There is no such precedent in the party’s history.

If in Trinidad and Tobago, the writing on the wall for replacement of Panday seems quite clear, in Guyana the challenge for the PNCR is that whoever is officially announced at the 16th congress as ’leader’, would know that he faces an enormous task to rebuild confidence among the party’s rank and file to replace the current PPP administration at new general election due in August 2011