Last Updated on Thursday, 20 August 2026, 22:52 by Writer
Chairman of the parliamentary opposition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Aubrey Norton on Thursday said he was ready to meet opposition leader Azruddin Mohamed to discuss APNU’s exclusion from the Local Government Commission (LGC).
But Mr Norton is refusing to meet at the office of the opposition leader and his We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) at Greenfield, East Bank Demerara, saying he wants a “neutral venue”.
“I am disposed to a meeting but it has to be at a neutral venue, a mutually agreed venue and we are willing to start over the process and discuss,” said Mr Norton who is also leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), the dominant party in APNU.
Mr Mohamed formally proposed to Mr Norton that both sides’ representatives meet next Monday.
The meeting was proposed after Mr Norton on Wednesday wrote Mr Mohamed a strongly worded letter expressing utter disappointment at the exclusion of both APNU nominees to sit on the LGC although APNU had been invited to propose names.
WIN opted to submit two of its party supporters and one from the one-seat Forward Guyana Movement (FGM).
Warning that such an approach was leading to a “fractured” opposition that could not confront the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC)-administration, the APNU chairman demanded that the opposition leader pick either Joan Romascindo or Ronald Daniels.
Among Mr Norton’s arguments are that the principle of proportionality should apply since APNU won 12 parliamentary seats and has councillors in a number of towns and neighbourhood councils.
Asked whether he believed that Mr Mohamed sought to entrap him to discuss the three opposition commissioners currently serving at the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), the APNU chairman said he was not opposed to discussing the issue.
“I will go into it with an open mind but we already have stated positions,” he said.
APNU and its allied GECOM election commissioners Vincent Alexander, Charles Corbin and Desmond Trotman have rejected calls for them to resign and make way for the new main opposition WIN to be represented on the election management body.
The commissioners said nothing in the constitution requires them to resign.
On the issue that none of the 69 scrutineers being paid by GECOM is from the WIN or the FGM, Mr Norton would only remark that he had seen reports of Mr Mohamed arbitrarily firing and hiring persons “which didn’t make sense to me.”
WIN is also concerned that the Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Upper Berbice) executive officer was yet to call another meeting of the democratic council to elect a chairman and vice chairman following a 9-9 vote tie.
It is almost one year now since WIN won Region 10, sweeping away the PNCR-led APNU for the first time.
However, when the councillors voted for the chairman and vice chairman on October 10, 2025, APNU, People’s Progressive Party Civic and FGM councillors combined to vote for APNU’s Dominic Blair to become the Region 10 chairman.
On the other hand, WIN used its nine seats to vote for Mark Goring.
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