EVERY human on Planet Earth would not rush to condemn an opposition leader if he/she requests a new election based on the closeness of the result. The logical reaction would be, “that was close man.” But surely, no human on Planet Earth will accept an opposition leader’s demand for a new election when that leader’s party won 18 per cent of the vote. Where is the narrow loss of Mr. Norton’s party?

In elections that all the international observers have accepted as free, fair, smooth, transparent and legitimate in its results, Mr. Norton wants a new poll. GECOM rejected his letter, and Guyana moves on with the continuation of Dr. Irfaan Ali, who won the September 1 contest.

Why did Norton descend to the level that would reap humongous disgrace on him even from genetically driven PNCR aficionados? I will offer two perspectives and within both perspectives there is the element of Norton’s mental stagnation. My first theory is Norton is living in the past about where Guyana is heading and how Guyana has changed.

Norton thought that his rejection of the elections results could have generated street protest from the traditional lumpen proletarian sub-culture within the PNCR and the traditional school of emotionally charged women folks. These two sections of the PNCR have always resorted to violence when egged on by successive PNCR leaders.

Norton grew up in the PNCR. He saw how Hamilton Green, Robert Corbin, he himself and the youth arm, have successfully tapped into that violent rage. Norton saw how the PNCR birthed ‘mo fyaah/slo fyaah’ and it became a threat to the stability of the country. But Guyana has left behind the era of ‘mo fyaah/slo fyaah.’ That was in 1997. There is no fertile soil that the PNC in 2025 can make use of to reignite ‘mo fyaah/slo fyaah.’

In any case the WIN party now controls those two violent elements that provided the PNCR with readily available assets from 1960 to 1997. The April 28 scrape-head violent marauding was orchestrated by WIN people not Congress Place. It was foolish for Norton to think that there would have been an immediate street occupation once he shouted “thief.” That PNCR army has long gone.

The second reason for Norton’s rejection of the elections was to stave off calls for his immediate resignation. Norton figured if he tells his party that their 18 per cent showing was not a real reflection of how their supporters voted and that the elections are not a legitimate reflection of the PNCR’s performance, then, the party will rally around him.

But Norton is facing a disaster that will drown him in the coming days. I have penned at least three pieces on this page in which I argued that Norton is gone after the elections because he will lose and the PNCR will replace him. In one of those columns, I posited that Norton will be removed with haste if Azruddin Mohamed dented the PNCR and that is what Mohamed did.
In a moment of desperation, Norton fired off his letter to the GECOM chairperson asking for a forensic audit and out of that new elections because he knows that it is the Mohamed factor that will guillotine his career. No matter how sycophantic the current central executive committee is, they will not continue with Norton because the PNCR’s devastation was weird, ghoulish and beyond imagination.

No central executive committee member will keep Norton because as of today, the very existence of the PNCR is in doubt. The PNCR did not concede five seats to Mohamed, it gave Mohamed 16 seats reducing the PNCR’s percentage to 18, the lowest since 1957. And the knives are out. A section of the youth arm has already asked for him to go. Former Finance Minister Winston Jordan echoed similar sentiments.

No matter how many loyalists Norton stacked the PNCR leadership with, the breaking point has been reached. Here is what is going to happen. Inside the central executive council there will be silence until the parliamentarians are selected. Once that is done, the PNCR leadership knows that it has to get a new leader, and they will make the courageous move to go public against Norton.

In the meantime, other traditional PNCR stalwarts will follow Jordan and call for his resignation. I doubt any PNCR leader at the present and in the past believed that the PNCR could have been displaced at the polls. For them, Guyana is PPP/C versus PNCR. The impossible has happened and that impossibility has swept away Norton to face an ignominious end to what has been a long journey.

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.