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Last Updated on Thursday, 21 September 2023, 16:18 by Denis Chabrol
Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton
Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), Aubrey Norton said his party would later this year end when its congress would be held.
He said that decision was made at the PNCR’s Central Executive Committee meeting on Wednesday. “The party’s Central Executive decided last evening that the matter will be placed to the General Council and it will be determined by the General Council. It has nothing to do with me. It now has to do with the party organs,” he said. Quarterly General Council meetings have not been held for more than one year now.
Given the fact that General Council has not yet been held and that a circular on the date for congress has to be dispatched at least three months before, party sources said Congress would most likely be held in 2024.
Earlier this month, he said the PNCR could return to holding its congress in August, although the two-year life of the current executive expires in December. The PNCR Leader had previously noted the importance of holding congress in August because it is “best and conducive” to doing so when schools are closed and so could be used to accommodate delegates from remote areas.
Other party sources have indicated that Mr Norton was finding flimsy excuses to possibly push back Congress until next year because he was fearful of losing.
Already, party insiders have said that lawyers Roysdale Forde and Amanza Walton-Desir are laying the groundwork to challenge Mr Norton for the leadership of the party.
Meanwhile, the incumbent PNCR Leader rejected claims that he was a dictator, saying that he consults with party members, engages stafff members, holds several news conferences as party leader and opposition leader, and hosts more meetings of the Central Executive Committee per month than had been held in the two years before the December 2021. “I don’t know that those are the hallmarks of a dictator…I won’t bother with people who are saying Aubrey Norton is a dictator” he said.
He said a number of persons who have been criticising him in a virtual platform were “not members of the party and they are bent on creating mischief.”