THE timeline of Aubrey Norton’s possible defeat at the People’s National Congress internal polls is reaching its climax with the party’s General Council set to meet this coming Saturday and Sunday.

Norton this week is meeting with his team to try and strategize his game plan. He knows very well that a plot is afoot to unseat him at the upcoming party congress.
For that reason, Congress Place will be a hive of activity from Wednesday when he plans to meet with party executives and his supporters to make his last-ditch effort to get a further delay in the party’s congress pushing it back to the April or August timeline.

If successful, Norton seems to think this will give him the time he needs to set the dynamics in favour of manipulating the party’s internal election machinery so that he is victorious at the congress.

Norton is desperate and lonely. The only politician by his side seems to be Dawn Hastings-Williams and Elson Low. He does not know which of his PNC MPs supports him truthfully. It would appear that Norton thinks he is surrounded by backstabbers and politicians who are thirsty for power and position.

Norton is holding and clinging on to power in the party. So, this General Council meeting, long overdue, will declare the timeline of Norton’s defeat. Therefore, he is walking on eggshells because one wrong step or utterance and Norton’s dream of becoming the party’s presidential candidate goes up in flames.

The biggest threat to Norton comes from Volda Lawrence. Though he might have pacified her ambitions, she is still looking on and assessing the situation. Lawrence is still a politician in every sense of the word. She wants to appear to be sleeping and strike when it really matters.

Norton must know that she has her ears and eyes within the party and among the women’s group. Talks about her rescuing the party from Norton’s idiotic, illogical and emotional grip have again resurfaced. She has been evasive of being in spotlight but would not say that she is not interested in the job.

Apart from Lawrence, former President David Granger is still eyeing the job now that he is well rested and have his health issues under control at the moment. Norton must know that Granger could consolidate the party and bring together sparring sections in a whole closer to elections.

Granger could decline the role of being the candidate to run in the elections much like Robert Corbin did in 2010 and nominate or work to have one of his abled minions run.
This is where Joseph Harmon, Gary Best, Simona Broomes, Roysdale Forde, Amanza Walton-Desir and Ganesh Mahipaul come in.

The other threats to Norton’s power lie within the central executive and comes from Annette Ferguson, Shurwayne Holder and others. It all comes back to this General Council meeting to set the timeline of the Congress and Norton’s fate.

Arguably, if the council goes with December, April or August for the holding of the party’s congress, Norton still would be up against stiff competition from politicians within the party.
This is essentially because of the growing and overwhelming sentiment that Norton’s irrational and street style politics is bad for the party. Norton does not have the ammunition to fight on longer against the People’s Progressive Party politicians who are having a field day with the PNC/R at the moment.

He does not have the track record in the party as a person who is a conflict mediator or can unite the groups in harmony.

Added to that, apart from winning the party’s congress two years ago, Norton has killed APNU which is still standing as shell only. He fractured the coalition with the Alliance for Change which is distant and stringing along for its own purpose. He does not communicate well with the party groups and has problems with the very dominant personalities in the upper echelons of the PNC.
Additionally, Norton has not accomplished anything in the PNC/R that was not already there when he took over the job. As for the party’s finances, the PNC/R is nearing bankruptcy and is surviving on donations.

He has not improved the working relationship with the PPP/C and the government. If anything, it is at an all-time low.
Finally, the General Council cannot afford to delay the congress longer. It must make a decision on the congress as frustration and anger by party supporters and groups is boiling over with Norton’s brand of politics. The meeting will also see shifting loyalties away from the leader of the party to an incoming leader whoever that would be.

The timeline has begun and the clock is ticking. There will be plots and schemes until the PNC/R congress chooses its next possible leader.