Which consensus candidate is more electable than Norton?

The talk all over the place is that Aubrey Norton is not electable, so he should make way for a candidate that can do better than him in the general election this year. There are two questions the analyst must answer in any assessment of coalition politics between the PNC and AFC.
The first; is Norton electable? The answer is no. The second; which consensus candidate outside of the PNC is likely to do better than Norton? Let’s answer the first one first.  Norton’s leadership of the PNC has been a disaster for the PNC and that disaster has no parallel in the history of political parties in Guyana.

Norton has alienated the most valuable personnel in the PNC’s hierarchy. No party in any part of the world can survive such extensive hemorrhaging. The story of Desmond Hoyte degutting the PNC comes close as an example, but the dimensions were different. I will come to that below.
The best parts of the PNC have been alienated since Norton became a leader. Important to note that not one of the iconic personalities in the PNC’s pantheon (both in and out of Guyana) has issued a public statement that praises or endorses Norton. What the PNC is today is a shell of what it was under Robert Corbin and David Granger.

Let’s get the Hoyte’s example out of the way. Hoyte literally removed the PNC leadership when he became leader of the PNC in 1985. But he only became leader of the PNC because he was made President of Guyana. Hoyte did not need the PNC to protect his presidency. He was the president, and the president has enormous reach. Hoyte used the presidency to fumigate the Burnhamite PNC, and the party fell in line, no doubt not wanting to invoke the ire of the president.
Norton’s situation is completely different from Hoyte. Norton cannot generate fear in the hierarchy of the PNC because he does not have state power and strategic players in the hierarchy do not have to fear that state power will be used against them. The most Norton can do to his challengers is to alienate them and he has done that, but it came with a price – he appears unelectable to PNC supporters at home and abroad and to Guyana’s voting population.
We now answer the second question posed above – which consensus candidate is more electable than Norton? Enter Nigel Hughes. His capture of the leader position of the AFC last year was a surprise for Guyanese in and out of the land. Even when the AFC was in power, Nigel declared his political career was over. I think that feeling was made public more than three times.

He was believed by the Guyanese people because he did not campaign in the 2020 election and he sought entry into Afro-centric politics, appearing  at dozens of forums, especially in Buxton were the subject-matter was inevitable the demands on the state by African people; put another way, African entitlement.

In this new phase of his informal political life, Nigel collapsed his activism with that of David Hinds, Tacuma Ogunseye, Rickforde Burke et al. His new direction was a personal disappointment for me. A man I viewed as a deep, serious multi-racial personality succumbed to the temptation of ethnic politics.
I think I can open up myself to the claim that by supporting the PPP government, I can be accused of ethnic leanings just like Nigel. The analogy is non-existent. I do not work in any conceivable way for the government. I belong to no Indian organization and have so association whatsoever with any Indian organization. I do not care about African entitlement and Indian entitlement. I care and will fight for Guyanese entitlement, but especially a part of the Guyanese landscape occupied by the proletariat and the peasantry.
So why did Nigel accept the leader’s position of the AFC? Because knowing that Norton is unelectable, he believes that he can do better as the consensus candidate. But can he? Why is he more electable than Norton? The answer is he is not. If there are factors against the eligibility of Norton, there are corresponding factors against Nigel.

First, as Norton and Sherod Duncan of the AFC echoed, you just cannot drop from the sky and want to lead a nation. You must have been in the war room and in the trenches. For this basic reason, Norton will continue to reject Nigel’s name. Secondly, Norton has not committed any greater sin than Nigel. Nigel was deputy leader of the AFC before he resigned in 2016 and he failed to transform the AFC. Thirdly, Nigel’s executive consists of people with baggage that are intensely disliked by this nation.  Both Nigel and Norton are unelectable.

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