I DON’T have a doubt in my mind that the former huge leaders of the PNC (I don’t have to name them but they are there) are looking toward January 2026. It will be the end of Norton. In the next month, some big names of the PNC will leave.

When you hear and see who they are, you have to be extremely limited to think it is not another nail in the coffin.
There have been four leaders of the PNC before Norton – Forbes Burnham, Desmond Hoyte, Robert Corbin and David Granger. It is ridiculous for the analyst to attempt to compare Norton with the first two.
Granger was not a competent president, but he was not an incompetent party leader. The two are different worlds altogether. I would not want to do a comparison between Granger and Norton.
I think that would be completely insulting to Granger. David Granger was a better party leader than Norton would ever be and that is because I think he entered politics with a sharper judgement of people than Norton. That leaves Corbin. I say with forceful assertion, Robert Corbin was a better leader.

I do not think political analysts and historians have been fair to Corbin. He came to the helm with baggage so weighty that it could have sunk an aircraft carrier. But his redemptive quality was that he was conscious of it and the consequences it had for his leadership. Corbin faced two formidable pathways.
One is the Mulatto/Creole class (MCC) wanted nothing to do with him. This brought the loss of valuable resources and talent. The MCC didn’t even attempt to dialogue with Corbin. They formed their own party – the Alliance For Change.

The second pathway was that he had to contend with expansive internal wrangling against him, led by James Mc Allister, Vincent Alexander, Peter Ramsaroop, Aubrey Norton, Faith Harding, Carl Greenidge and Winston Murray. Corbin had become a walking corpse.

The end came when he lost five seats to the AFC which should have been six but a legal tangle in Linden prevented that. Lacking in egoistic hubris, Corbin was prepared to listen to others who told him if he leaves the PNC could be saved. Not many in the society know that Rupert Roopnaraine played a crucial part in saving the PNC.
Roopnaraine was able to get Corbin to subsume the PNC under another name and allowed for a brand, new MCC personality to take over the PNC. David Granger and Rupert Roopnaraine teamed up at the Office of the Opposition on Hadfield Street and together with Raphael Trotman plotted the return of the PNC. It happened in May 2015.

Corbin had gone. The PNC had a presentable leader but party leader and government leader carry two different burdens. Granger simply could not administer the affairs of Guyana and the APNU+AFC lost it. Norton became leader and would have beaten anyone who contested because PNC supporters did not attribute government failure to Norton but to the PNC bigwigs who were ministers.
So Norton beat Basil Williams and Joe Harmon. There were simply no options left for these former ministers. Had Granger stayed on, Norton and his acolytes would have pursued guerrilla warfare inside the PNC just as Norton and Alexander did to Corbin.

So Norton became leader and it was an uncanny atavistic return to the era of Corbin’s time. Norton has no resources to run the PNC, the MCC cannot stand him and big names wanted to oust at the last congress and they haven’t reconciled themselves to him.

One of the factors that explain why Norton sticks with David Hinds is who else he has? Hinds is an unusual degenerative departure in Guyanese politics. Hinds knows the Freudian mind of his mentor – Eusi Kwayana at a very deep level- this explains Hinds’ almost rabid anti-Indian rampage. But Norton does not have any latitude to reject the lunatic fringe because that is all he has left to work with.

And so the political life of Aubrey Norton in January 2026 is going to take the same direction as Robert Corbin’s political existence did in January 2011. The essential difference is that Corbin bowed out without hubristic flair. Egoistic wildness is going to drive Norton in January 2026 to put up a fight. But he will lose.

Norton in the 2025 election is going to lose votes to many of the contenders. PNC voter- hibernation will cause the loss of many seats maybe a bigger dent than what Corbin suffered in 2006. Dr. Irfaan Ali will be re-elected and Aubrey Norton will be forced to ride away into the sunset. One hopes he writes his memoir. Guyanese will buy 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.