IN my piece for last Wednesday, I mentioned that I wanted to look at two personalities on the issue of accountability – former editor of the now defunct Stabroek News, Anand Persaud and PNC leader, Aubrey Norton. Wednesday’s commentary was on Persaud so today, I look at Norton.
Mr. Norton, at a press conference last week, called on the government to be accountable. I should have titled this column, “Aubrey Norton is the luckiest man among global opposition politicians.”
How Norton survived the pre-2025 hemorrhage within his party, the devastation of the PNC in the 2025 general elections and the bizarre selection of PNC parliamentarians is simply beyond description and imagination.
No one in Mr. Norton’s shoes survives those ordeals. Thus, he is perhaps the luckiest politician in the world. The 2025 rout of the PNC has seen only one voice calling for the removal of Norton, and that is former Finance Minister, Winston Jordan. He made one utterance and then went silent.
Mr. Norton remains leader of the PNC and talks about accountability when that value is missing in Norton himself. While still serving on the executive committee of the PNC, and while still the Economic Adviser to Norton and the Treasurer of the PNC, Mr. Elson Low went public on the Freddie Kissoon Show and told the nation that there was no consultation within the leadership of the PNC on the 12 parliamentary choices.
But the worst was to come. Mr. Norton’s deputy, the PNC’s chairman, Shurwayne Holder, also went public and informed Guyanese that, he as Deputy Leader, was not consulted on the selection of the 12. Both men indicted Norton for lack of accountability. It is unheard of in modern politics where a leader selects his/her parliamentarian all by him/herself without any input from those who sit at the apex of the organisation.
The consultation takes one of two forms – a meeting of party leaders or round-robin method. Messrs. Lowe and Holder said none of these two directions were used. Then another charge of lack accountability came up with the selection of the head of the PNC parliamentary group, Mr. Terrance Campbell. This was also the decision of Mr. Norton.
Not only has Mr. Norton endured these moments of self-destruction, he rides on and talks about the need for accountability. If you dislike, Mr. Norton, you have to give him credit for being a phenomenal survivor. How many men and women in world politics could enter deep waters of abomination and ignominious defeats as Norton has and not one party official has called for his resignation?
On Wednesday, former Mayor of Georgetown, Ubraj Naraine insisted that Norton should be removed. But Narine like Winston Jordan does not function within the physiology of the PNC. That means no one in the hierarchy of the PNC has either discreetly or diplomatically or overtly has asked Mr. Norton to resign.
The ineligibility of Norton to continue as PNC leader was heightened this week when seven PNC officials echoed support for the PPP Government. Some of these persons have political assets that in a multi-racial country are priceless. One is a former AFC parliamentarian, Ricky Ramsaroop that left the AFC for the PNC during the 2025 election campaign. He is Indian and thus was an asset to the PNC.
Another is a Berbician who represented the PNC in Parliament and is a Hindu pandit, Dinesh Jaiprashad. The pandit about a year ago said on the Freddie Kissoon Show that the PNC was the only party he was familiar with since he grew up seeing his father being a PNC activist.
Mr. Jaiprashad has three characteristics that the PNC needs – Berbician, Indian and practising Hindu priest. How in a multi-racial country in which the PNC is seen as an African party that practises overt racial politics such a valuable politician the PNC could afford to lose? The PNC has now lost its former deputy leader Holder to the PPP.
What should be nightmarish for Norton is that the cross-over personalities are not obscure individuals Guyanese have never heard about. These are national figures that have people who respect them. So, this week, it was seven. What will the number be next month and next year?
As the madness inside the PNC continues what sets the PNC apart from any other political party in the world is that not one human that loves the PNC has seen the PNC become a historic entity and whose life has been positively shaped by the PNC has the moral commitment to the PNC to stand up and demand that Norton goes. The PNC is surely dying. What a pity!
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.
