BEFORE President Irfaan Ali rose to address a special session of the National Assembly on Thursday, the APNU+AFC opposition led by Aubrey Norton, staged a protest some distance from the Arthur Chung Conference Centre. They had no idea what the President was going to announce. It turned out to be a bag of gifts that didn’t exclude the opposition.

Even Elson Low, the PNC/R economic adviser, admitted that the PPP/C did exactly what his party had been asking for. What was all the protest about? Why curse and insult the president for putting money into the pockets of hardworking Guyanese families? It was the talk of the town. No one was complaining.

This leads me to believe that there must have been some other reason for APNU+AFC’s audacious and crass disregard for a pillar of democracy – civility.
Is the opposition showboating, performing for a public that has become wise to their ways of fake outrage and failed promises? Aubrey Norton and APNU+AFC are in a desperate pursuit for relevance, floundering and agitated.

A day after President Ali announced that every household would receive, effective immediately, $200,000. one-off cash grant, Norton had the temerity to admonish the government not to discriminate against segments of Guyanese when distributing the cash. He didn’t say which segments and had nothing to say about free university tuition as of January 2025. A simple ‘thank you’ would have sufficed.

And what’s Norton’s grand plan for economic growth? Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, Attorney General Anil Nandlall and Minister Ashni Singh should pitch a tent at the corner of Camp and Regent streets on the first day of every month and hand out wads of cash to just about anyone with a smile on his face. One would think that Elson Low would have given him better advice.

Never mind building hundreds of kilometres of road, forget about the bridges, discard GOAL and BIT, disregard the distribution of thousands of house lots, building CORE homes for the poor and elderly, cancel the tremendous strides in outfitting the agri-sector with the tools to modernise production, to list a tiny list of programmes the PPP/C has rolled out in the last four years. In Norton’s roadmap, and I am being generous calling it a map, nothing short of the free and uninhibited distribution of bags full of cash will do.

His team has failed him. The majority of their members want him gone. That is no longer a secret. Norton needs more than a GPS to navigate his way forward. Even the PNC/R hardcore supporters in New York and Canada refused to show up to welcome him. It was so bad that News Source didn’t find it newsworthy.

On Thursday, I listened to President Ali deliver a seminal speech riddled with one stunning announcement after another, touching on all 17 major sectors of his administration’s agenda. What struck me was the sheer determination of this man and the PPP/C to carve out as much opportunity as possible for every adult Guyanese to take advantage of a menu of education and professional training.

President Ali spoke about establishing a Guyana Digital School, a brick-and-mortar structure that will utilise AI to support its curriculum. This enticing and highly controversial announcement might have gone unnoticed in APNU+AFC circles. Is the president envisioning a future of teacherless classrooms?

In August, the David Game College, a private school in London, announced a new teacherless class for 20 GCSE students using artificial intelligence. The students will learn using a mixture of AI platforms on their computers and virtual reality headsets except for two subjects – sex education and art. To enrol, parents will have to cough up approximately £27,000 a year to pay for it.

I am not sure whether this is where President Ali is heading with his Digital School initiative, but if he is, and clearly that’s where the elite schools in the developed countries are heading, I’d say the use of AI as an educational tool will spur something akin to a revolution in education for Guyana and the Caribbean.

On that score, I asked my go-to AI app whether Guyanese should trust Aubrey Norton. AI took less than a second to spit out the following: “The PNC/R has historically been associated with periods of authoritarian rule, which make some voters hesitant about Norton’s ability to govern inclusively.”

AI is being civil and it is also well aware that empty vessels make the most noise.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.