TWO developments within the elections period caused the PNCR to lose votes. One is the jaded, aged political garment of Aubrey Norton. When asked about his opinion of David Hinds, he missed the commonsensical response. This is what a normal, thinking politician would have conveyed: “The WPA is an independent coalition partner. We in the PNC would not like others to dictate to us, so we will not dictate for others.”

And he should have left it at that. That answer was neutral. He could not have been accused of siding with Hinds. He didn’t leave it alone. He went on to praise Hinds, a political tone that has no support among the races of Guyana and the Guyanese people, collectively. Hinds is so extremist that his own daughter left the WPA and ignored the PNCR and went straight to an Indian-led party, WIN.

Norton put the icing on the cake when he chose Hinds to be an APNU parliamentarian. You have to be a fool not to think that such an elevation of Hinds was not a self-destructive act. The other development was Hinds himself. Once he was on the APNU parliamentary list and he kept up his racial sermons, the cat ran away with the PNCR’s dinner. During the elections campaign, Hinds’ podcasts helped undecided voters to give their ballots to the PPP and WIN.

Enter Terrence Campbell. It looked good in the eyes of some people who didn’t know Campbell that he was an ameliorating face in the PNCR leadership that would dissolve some of the political miasma the PNCR carried with it. But Norton knew what he was doing when he selected Campbell to lead the PNCR in parliament.

Norton understands and appreciates one genre of Guyanese politicians – the soldier who is married to the trench and is a bully that can marshal the troops. Norton became a victim of that genre of politics because he was in it for too long and it took over his personality.

The psychological parallel was Hamilton Green. No matter what position the PNCR leadership gave Green, he was not happy with being outside his trench-warfare environment. Green found it impossible to adapt to the boardroom. When he was in the boardroom, he paid no attention to the meeting in the room, but looked outside on the street all the time. That was where he knew he belonged. Norton was the reincarnation of Green.

Norton was humiliated at the 2025 elections because he, like Green, is a congenital street fighter. So, who did he pick to go to parliament? The name Sherod Duncan, the Bellman, rings out loudly. Norton favours people like Duncan that is a king in the cuss-out game. He chose Campbell as the PNCR’s parliamentary leader and had the last laugh. While society thought Campbell was a more respected and respectable choice for leadership, Campbell is not far from Norton himself, Duncan and Hinds.

It was Campbell who first made it public that for months he was trying to get Norton to come around to a coalition with the AFC and have a consensus candidate. Campbell was meeting with Norton and the PNCR leadership didn’t know. If anyone would have known about the Norton-Campbell rendezvous, it would have been Ganesh Mahipaul, who is the most senior figure in the PNCR after Norton.

Mahipaul said on the Freddie Kissoon Show, he did not know of the months of special dialogue between Norton and Campbell. And the reason for this was because Norton and Campbell were friends long before the 2025 elections campaign began.

Norton knows Campbell and he knows the political temperament of Campbell. He knows which wavelength Campbell will travel on and Campbell did not surprise Norton. Campbell went to the site of the accidental death of Adrianna Younge and praised the violent scrapeheads of April 28, 2025.

Here is Campbell’s latest racially inspired pronouncement. Here is what he wrote after Grenada accepts nurses from Ghana: “I doubt the Government of Guyana will accept  Ghanian or Zimbabwean nurses.” Even a moron can see the subterranean racial implication there.

Who do those words remind you of? Of course, Aubrey Norton, David Hinds, Rickford Burke, Norman Brown, Mark Benschop and Sherod Duncan. The humongous irony of it is that the PNCR lost over 100, 000 votes to a party headed and financed and administered by a rich, Muslim Indian family. But if Campbell is a clone of Hinds, then expect Campbell to reproduce the asininity of the utterance of Hinds three weeks ago, when he exclaimed that WIN is a Black people party.

Terrence, I am asking you, as a successful businessman, do you believe that idiocy of David Hinds? I believe you do.

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.