OPINION: The Aubrey Norton sweepstakes – long odds

Last Updated on Saturday, 6 September 2025, 12:38 by Writer

by GHK Lall

The Aubrey Norton sweepstakes is on. Everybody wants a piece of him; there are those who seek his head on a platter. A sacrificial lamb (offering is better) for all the wrongs that plague the PNC. I try this piece not to save his skin, which I cannot do, but to save his sanity and maybe his identity, with which I may stand a fair chance.

For starters, he is the leader, and leaders have the brutal reality of one choice: fall on their sword. Some would see that as the Bushidō code followed by the Samurais, but it is also the ruthless equations of political reality. I notice that Mr. Norton is putting up a fight, but I think that events have already moved away from him. He is being pointed in the direction of an election petition, and as much value as that has, it doesn’t pause the clock moving inexorably towards declaration and inauguration.

For my part, I think that Mr. Norton and his party missed the boat. The pressures that had to be built and built on GECOM and on the incumbents prior to the heat of the campaign trail never got going. Issues of a controversial and burning nature were put before the public, before GECOM, but that is as much as could be said for them. The interrelated issues of house-to-house registration, bloated list, and biometrics had to be blended into a combined cause from which there was no retreating. Because they incorporated so much and meant so much, Guyanese had to hear of them until they got sick. At least, GECOM should have borne the brunt of such energies, both on the inside and on the street as well. Further, the international community resident here had to be drawn into those concerns. I think that both Mr. Norton and his brain trust didn’t do themselves any favors when those areas and issues were not vested with the kind of passion that ought to have been relentless. The bottom line is that the PNC had to identify three to five issues from which it would not back down and be prepared to leave everything on the line for them. It didn’t, and I think that that came back to haunt the group. Few were the folks who could say with some accuracy that they knew what the party stood for, what was its raison d’être.

Now, there are two other issues of which the PNC being behind him is one and then his own ability to motivate and activate his support base, and, to stretch this, inspire Guyanese outside of that group. In fairness to Mr. Norton, he was and still is the Leader of the Opposition, but his was a crown of thorns, a spiked drink. His own people were not in his corner, and as fully as they should be, from the get-go. How does a leader, any leader, function in such an environment, succeed when the deck was stacked against him in such a manner? When the interests of the PNC base took second place to weakening Mr. Norton, it is doubtful that a much better leader than he was going to overcome such odds. He was hurt badly, when his own comrades—the stalwarts and other recognizable names in the PNC—kept as much distance as possible from him during the elections campaign just completed. To be blunt, it had to be an ill-fated campaign, when that was the context in which Mr. Norton operated. How could it have been otherwise? The poll numbers now provide damning testimony, and there is enough blame to pass around, including much which must rest on his own head.

Mr. Norton was not the kind of inspiring figure, that charismatic leader, that drives people to gravitate to him. He is a good listener, but beyond that, not much could be had out of him. He is a man who plays his cards close to his vest, keeps his own counsel. The former is advisable in some circumstances, while the latter certainly did not redound to his advantage. Too many of his own people felt that after all the listening and absorbing by him, at the end of the day little if anything had changed. It could be vision and strategy; it could be program and personnel. It could be what the PNC base needed to galvanize it out of its apathy, to believe that there is substance and some probably of success at the polls. To say this differently, as many as the enemies of Aubrey Norton were inside the PNC, he turned out to be his own worst enemy. Lackluster isn’t the word. And because I don’t like to pile on when the whole world is against a man, I shall leave it at that, in the belief that enough has been said.

Here’s my last word. Should he stay or should he go? The honorable thing beckons: leave on his own strength.