Dear Editor,
Robert Corbin, who passed on October 4th, the day before the anniversary of the return of free and fair elections in Guyana in 1992, played an outsized role as a leader of the PNC in politics before and after that date. By the time I returned in 1988 to represent the NY-founded “Jaguar Committee for Democracy” to join the local struggle for electoral reform, Robert had become indispensable to Desmond Hoyte’s campaign to solidify his leadership of the PNC.
In the1985 elections, he had reprised the role he played in the party since he was a teenager working assiduously as a member, then leader, of the party’s youth wing, the YSM to organize majorities for the PNC at the polls of 1968, then in 1973 and 1980 for Forbes Burnham. Missing a parliamentary seat because of his age in 1968, he was handed one in 1973 and occupied it for over three decades. He earned a formidable reputation as a street politician, feared only slightly less than Hamilton Green, who was eased out of the party after Hoyte calculatedly rewarded Corbin with the Deputy Prime Ministership and transferred several PM responsibilities to him.
Quite conscious by then of the snobbery of Caribbean “doctor politics”, Corbin entered law school after the PNC’s loss in 1992 and had just finished his first year at Hugh Wooding when he rushed back to mobilize for the Dec 1997 elections. As such, he would again prove his worth as he subsequently helped organize massive rallies for Hoyte’s violent “mo fyaah; slow fyaah” campaign against Janet Jagan’s presidency.
Elected to Parliament in 2000 on the ROAR ticket after the PNC-bludgeoned, truncated PPP term, I became personally acquainted with Robert as a member of the opposition. Evidently knowing that I was vegetarian (then) he sought me out at a meal break with a particular non-meat dish, which served as an ice-breaker to many discussions on several of my pet issues – including reforming and “balancing” the Disciplined Forces. To my surprise, he said he agreed with me but advised that the process would have to be carefully crafted and executed. After he became PNC leader, he vigorously supported the establishment of the Disciplined Forces Commission which, inter alia, would recommend that policy and enabling mechanisms.
Mr Hoyte’s sudden passing in late 2002 resulted in Robert being elected PNC leader the following March – but not without much drama in the party from several quarters including Mr Hoyte’s protégé Raphael Trotman and Team Alexander. Not long after, I received a call from Lance Carberry saying that Robert wanted a meeting, to which I agreed, at his home in south GT. I found that Robert was convinced – as Mr Hoyte had become not long before he passed – that shared governance was the vehicle to resolve our political logjam. I informed him, however, that such a vehicle would suffer from the disequilibrium in size if individuals or smaller parties were to join the PNCR and the PPP was out. He agreed to the latter proposition and emphasized subsequently at discussions that there could be no national government without the PPP.
We parted amicably and very soon, the nation heard that talks between President Jagdeo and Opposition Leader Corbin had commenced as the latter downplayed Hoyte’s “slow fyaah; mo fyaah” strategy. This precipitated greater consternation from within and without the PNC. Sitting next to WPA’s Sheila Holder in Parliament, one day she burst out that “this is not what we put Corbin there…he was supposed to “manners” the PPP.”
Robert believed that Jagdeo would arrive at a modus vivendi with him at power sharing and acted accordingly. He also diligently had discussions at Waterchris with the smaller opposition parties like ROAR and WPA. However, sitting next to him in early 2006 at Sash Sawh’s funeral at Castellani House, when Jagdeo pointedly mentioned the “intellectual authors” of Sash’s murder, Robert angrily exclaimed, “If I was the old Robert Corbin…!” There was no agreement between them and with Trotman’s AFC siphoning off five seats from Corbin’s PNCR-One Guyana in the 2006 elections, he faced more strident leadership challenges.
Robert stuck to his guns about the PNC needing an accommodative image and by 2010 announced he would not be their Presidential candidate for the upcoming elections. He riled party leaders like Aubrey Norton when he engineered APNU’s formation and David Granger’s presidential candidacy. Ironically, he was peripheralized in the new APNU+AFC government and Granger destroyed his inclusive vision by also sidelining his smaller coalition partners.
Robert Corbin demonstrated it is possible for political leaders to evolve and rise to the needs of their country.
RIP Robert.
Sincerely,
Ravi Dev
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