RESTFULLY holed up in my Georgetown hotel room, I closely followed the 2021 PNC Congress — and especially its election of officers featuring veteran stomper Aubrey Norton in a showdown with Opposition Leader Joseph Harmon over who’ll be the next party leader.

It was supposed to have been a triangular fight between Norton, Opposition Leader Harmon and LFS Burnham’s son-in-law, Dr Richard Van-West Charles
Outgoing party leader and immediate past President of the Republic, David Granger, was in Cuba undergoing medical attention and clearly, there was no love lost between the two main players.
Essentially, the press sold it as a straight fight between Norton and Harmon.

But long before the first vote was cast or all were counted, Harmon made it crystal clear that even if Norton won, he wouldn’t cede the position of parliamentary Opposition Leader.

Granger, being accused of refusing to appoint Norton to Parliament under his watch, he was seen as backing Harmon against Norton, who, almost like Donald Trump way ahead of the November 2020 U.S. presidential poll, sent clear signals he wouldn’t accept unwelcome results.

Appointed Parliamentary Opposition Leader by Granger in his position as Leader of the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) opposition alliance following the 2020 elections, Harmon insisted that only the brigadier could dis-appoint him before the next general elections (due in 2025).

Granger was not nominated for a position on the new PNC Executive and his message to the opening session was not played publicly, clear signals the brigadier was no longer in command after yielding the parliamentary leadership to Harmon after leading the party into its disastrous 2020 loss.

I did strongly feel that Granger and Harmon, et al, had gravely underestimated Norton – and the results confirmed that they also might have seen the dreaded signs way ahead of time, thus the resort to advanced notice of later intransigent intent.

Norton whipped Harmon almost four-to-one (and Van-West Charles’ almost 10-to-one), setting the stage for another Norton vs Harmon showdown, this time over the position of Leader of the Opposition.

As expected, the gentleman in Brigadier Granger acknowledged Norton’s election as his replacement, but the winner had never took his eyes off the ball as far as also becoming Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition.

I held that Harmon would hold on only for as long as it took for him to overcome what he might have regarded as a loss to a veteran upstart who’d more divide than unite the party, but was more like a groundswell against Granger’s leadership and Harmon’s advanced notice that he had no intention to give way to Norton, even if he won fair-and-square.

As I wrote, Harmon was still Opposition Leader in Parliament and Granger still APNU Leader, while the party’s political technicians work out what next…
But with Norton aiming for nothing less than maximum leadership (or leading from in front), it would be just a matter of time before he took what his supporters consider his rightful place as Opposition Leader.

Eventually, neither Granger nor Harmon were on the new national executive elected with Norton after the congress, strengthening Norton’s hold, but also possibly hardening the Granger-Harmon determination to lock him out of the National Assembly until the next general and regional elections.

However, the regulations governing parliamentary affairs do stipulate how an Opposition Leader is appointed and removed, which will also help determine how long Harmon can maintain his intransigence – and keep the party’s leader out of Parliament.

From all he said within the first three days after being elected top leader, Norton made it known that the Granger-Harmon era was clearly over and the PNC/R, under his watch, would return to the realm of scorched earth, uncompromising, aggressive, no-stone-unturned, ‘Take No Prisoner’, hardball political opposition that put political street-fighting ahead of stately brinkmanship or bipartisanism.