Norton in combative speech at ‘cost of living’ public meeting

Last Updated on Saturday, 20 January 2024, 23:18 by Denis Chabrol

Opposition and PNCR Leader Aubrey Norton addressing a ‘cost of living’ public meeting at Burnham Court on January 20, 2024

Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton Saturday night put the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC)-led administration on notice that the opposition would resist any attempt by the incumbent party to remain in office if it loses the next general and regional elections.

He also signaled that a People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR)-led coalition government would shift around PPPC loyalists currently in government jobs to prevent the new administration from being sabotaged again.

Mr Norton, who is also the PNCR Leader, predicted that the PPP would resort to armed resistance through private security firms that had been mushrooming in Guyana in recent times, but he cautioned that the possession of weaponry alone would not yield success. “Don’t rule out they going to violence to stay in power. When we finish beatin dem we goin got to tek dem on. Look, everyday they producing a security company; everyday a security company but they must remember, merely having guns does not guarantee you victory. He who can handle the gun is in a better position,” he told an estimated 700 persons at the Burnham Basketball Court, Middle and Carmichael Streets, Georgetown where a joint opposition public meeting was held against the rising cost of living and paltry increases in pensions and public assistance.

Recalling that the David Granger-led A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) administration had kept many employees in government jobs on coming to power in 2015, Mr Norton vowed that that would not happen again to make a new PNCR-led administration susceptible to sabotage. “When we were in government, I remember David Granger saying ‘we didn’t ask you which political party you support. We kept you to work. All we want you to do is to serve the people’. Many of them sabotaged us. I’m saying to you that won’t happen again,” he said without elaborating. He only said when the opposition gets political power, “we will serve our people.”

The Opposition Leader also warned that unspecified action would be taken if the Irfaan Ali-led government moves to seize land from cooperative societies. “Any time the PPP attempts to take it, we should fight them and mind you, you could fight people without they seeing you. We have to get some new forms of struggle that we can’t discuss here. They must just feel it,” he said.  He added that “we have to give them the deadly blow.”

Mr Norton said “we have to let the PPP start feeling” invisible measures in response to the government’s domination and control.

He stressed the importance of the opposition continuing to do its “work in the fields” at a time when Guyanese were fed up with the government’s approach to addressing poverty. He also cited the need to rebuild the trade union movement, and for supporters to reach out to Indo-Guyanese and Amerindians.

The meeting was attended by persons not only from Georgetown but from the East Coast Demerara, Berbice, East Bank Demerara, West Demerara and Linden.