AUBREY Norton needs either to remove himself from the leader position of the PNC or stay silent, and let others in the party hierarchy do the public speaking. He opens his mouth and says very embarrassing things.
Mr. Norton recently said on his party television programme, “Nation Watch” that he plans to revitalise the PNC.
Here are the words of Norton: “When you come out of an election in which you suffer a defeat, you cannot just bury your head in the sand.”
But that is exactly what Norton is doing and has been doing since the national election of September 1 – burying his head so deep in the sand that by the time people pull him from underneath the sand castle, there will be no PNC left.
Before we proceed, let’s look at his admission of defeat. He used the word defeat, but Norton is on record as saying that the PNC was not defeated in the March 2020 poll and the September 2025 poll.
There is no need for a party to reflect on its defeat and intensify mobilisation in the society because you were not defeated in the first place.
Let’s quote Norton: “We will engage the youth because I do believe that urgent work needs to be done with the youth.”
But why the urgency when the youths were there with you in 2020 and 2025, and you did not lose because the elections were rigged?
Norton needs to do the decent thing and level with the people who gave the PNC 12 seats. Did you win both the 2020 and 2025 contests or were you defeated? It appears that Norton is finally conceding that the PNC was defeated on September 2025 because he used the word, defeat.
Let’s return to his presentation on Nation Watch. Nowhere in his delivery did he even vaguely allude to riding away. But he has to mount that horse because the PNC and the wider society know Mr. Norton is the problem besetting the PNC.
The word Norton used to describe his role in the PNC is “revitalise.” If ever there was a politician who chose a word that has self-destruction propulsion is that word Norton chose.
To revitalise a person or an organisation means you have to identify the symptom that has caused lack of vitality in the first place.
The PNC’s biology and physiology began to lose vitality because too many talented people were leaving and they put the blame on Norton.
The party went from 31 seats to 12. Days after the elections, top PNC decision-makers accused Norton of assigning parliamentary status to 12 persons without any input from the leadership of the party.
The list includes the Chairman of the PNC – Shurwayne Holder and the Treasurer, Elson Low. Party stalwart and executive member, Mervyn Williams resigned soon after the election. It was Mr. Norton who designated Terrence Campbell as parliamentary leader of the PNC group in parliament. The same Campbell told Demerara Waves that he cannot remember when he joined the PNC but he knew it was recent.
Two questions the analyst needs to put forward. Can the PNC be revitalised and can Norton be the person to spearhead the rejuvenation process. The answer to the first question is yes. The PNC is too historic an organisation with massive support among African Guyanese not to be able to recalibrate and do so successfully. The answer to the second question is no.
Mr. Norton has presided over the second worst electoral disaster in the Caribbean after the black-wash that occurred in Barbados when the Barbados Labour Party won all the parliamentary seats and its opponents, the Democratic Labour Party did not win any seats.
Maybe at psychological level, Norton cannot comprehend what happened to the PNC on September 1, 2025.
A political party just three months old snatched 16 seats from constituencies that voted for the PNC since 1957. That party has displaced the PNC as the major opposition in parliament, and took away the regional governments the PNC controlled since free and fair election returned in 1992.
For a party to suffer a tsunamic defeat yet its leader behaves as if life goes on as normal is extremely bizarre. Leaders of political parties like Norton anywhere in the world do not survive after such incomprehensible devastation as what happened to the PNC.
If Norton stays on as the PNC leader, there will be no revitalisation (his word) but demise. The longer Norton stays on as PNC leader, those youths that he plans to engage with to regenerate the PNC will not come. Those youths want a new PNC leader. They deserve it.

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.