AUBREY Norton has a problem. And it’s the kind of problem that should make every Guyanese sit up straight. I’m not talking about whether the man is a few marbles short, or flirting with outright delusion, though, frankly, both are plausible. He might just be choosing to live in a reality of his own making. I can’t claim to know him well enough to say for sure.
What I do know is that Norton has no love for democracy. I’ve met people in distant corners of the globe who openly pine for authoritarian strongmen. That’s their business. But Guyanese? We know better. Which is why it’s alarming, no, infuriating, that Norton tosses aside plain, stubborn facts with the careless swagger of a teenager convinced the rules don’t apply to him.
A few weeks ago, shortly after meeting with a team of European observers, the leader of the People’s National Congress and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) had this to say on the campaign trail: “If the PPP believe they are gonna rig the elections, they ain’t gonna like the outcome. We will not allow them to rig the elections.”
Norton didn’t just drop one piece of nonsense. He had to spread some more around for good measure. “We say to the PPP, let better sense prevail, because we will not condone the rigging of the 2025 elections. Whatever happens after you rig, it will be your responsibility, because we have already decided we had enough of your garbage, we had enough of your corruption.”
I wish Norton were doing a stand-up comedy routine. For the record, I am not disparaging the decent party die-hards in green, rallying at APNU events. They deserve better leadership than Norton, Juretha Fernandes, and Ganesh Mahipaul provide.
Norton was present in Guyana throughout the tumultuous days of March and August 2020. He cannot feign ignorance of the overwhelming evidence that his party and its coalition partners conspired to steal the 2020 elections. There is not a scintilla of evidence that the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) tried to rig the elections.
He ignores the ongoing 2020 electoral rigging trial before Magistrate Faith McGusty. He ignores that Keith Lowenfield, Clairmont Mingo, Roxanne Myers, Volda Lawrence, Carol Smith-Joseph, and four former GECOM employees are charged with misconduct, forging documents, and conspiracy to defraud the electorate by declaring false vote counts—inflating Region Four’s results to hand APNU+AFC a win.
He overlooks that Samuel Sandy, former PNC Region Four Vice Chairman, produced irrefutable evidence two months ago: party leadership knew it had lost. Former President David Granger knew Mingo was inflating numbers at Ashmin’s Building. No wonder the PNCR has never published its Statements of Poll (SoPs).
Two years after the five-month turmoil, Norton ran into VP Bharrat Jagdeo at a formal event. Someone recorded their exchange. Norton was intense; a relaxed Jagdeo called it “just a gyaff,” and asked, where are the SoPs? Norton replied, he’d release them when the time was ripe. Three years on, apparently, ignorance is bliss.
Bruce Golding, head of the OAS Electoral Observation Mission and former Jamaican Prime Minister, described it bluntly: “I have never seen a more transparent effort to alter the results of an election… It takes an extraordinarily courageous mind to present fictitious numbers when such a sturdy paper trail exists.”
Every credible report—the OAS, EU, Carter Centre, CARICOM, and the Commission of Inquiry—points to the PNCR/APNU+AFC’s plot to derail democratic tabulation.
You have to be living in a parallel universe, or something worse, to stand on a platform and play the victim when you’re the villain.
The Commission of Inquiry found: “There were, in fact, shockingly brazen attempts by Lowenfield, Myers and Mingo to derail and corrupt the statutorily prescribed procedure for the counting, ascertaining and tabulation of votes of the March 2nd election, as well as the true declaration of the results of that election, and that they did so – to put it in unvarnished language of the ordinary man – for the purpose of stealing the election.”
Norton, please turn to page 10 of the CoI report for the reference.
The report further notes: “…from the totality of the evidence surrounding Mingo’s declaration, there appears to be such collusion and collaboration between senior GECOM officials as to likely amount to a conspiracy to make what was undoubtedly a premature and unlawful declaration of falsified results which showed the APNU/AFC party as the winner of electoral district No. 4.”
Norton, please now turn to page 76.
Guyana stands at a defining moment. The truth is not up for debate; it is the foundation of our democracy. History will not forgive those who try to twist it with bluster and disregard for fact.
If leaders like Norton cannot find the integrity to face reality and confront the past honestly, they lose any moral claim to shaping Guyana’s future. With clear eyes, the nation must reject lies and insist on accountability from those who aspire to hold its highest offices.
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.