Candidate endorsement is an imperfect proxy for support.
The power houses of PNCR’s (People’s National Congress Reform) opinion continue to underwrite the lack of former Party stalwarts’ involvement in the Norton Campaign as the proximate cause of its crushing defeat on September 1st 2025.
This, by itself, takes away every chance that the ticket was ever singly viable, ever independently capable of success.
And it has become an inflammatory political wedge issue; even citing certain readings as some sort of credence, which has the propensity to distract from the Party’s current state of sustained flat lining…as oblivion sits on its historic horizon.
Finger pointing may offer splintered healing and solace may be sought in disparate spaces but self delusion wouldn’t fix what’s broken…a fix that demands linear examination of everything that caused the loss.
Endorsement speaks to the character of the receiver as much as it does of the sender.
That’s why its voluntary, never obligatory.
And, it lends legitimacy. Norton was never legitimate.
We remember and quite distinctly, the fielding, nomination and eventual election of those who headed previous tickets.
Norton’s ‘election’ as Presidential candidate never happened…is the statement of many who cite the Party’s Constitution. And if it did, we would be the first to apologize if the Party publishes the documentation- every single step and line of it- to confirm.
Instead of an election, we’re told, he enjoyed a single-candidate nomination…following his claims that he was anointed by some previous pact to be the 2025 candidate.
It’s the kind of behavior that was frowned upon when a previous female President, who threw the court order that forbade her to swear in over her shoulder, appointed, in her place, an acting President, which he did until he was legally elected President in 2001 and then 2006.
Practice and Preach have switched sides. Subterfuge as Refuge has now joined the arsenal of tricks that are eroding PNC’s flailing reputation.
The ‘charm offensive’ – whether the words worked singly or as a unit- must have been compelling, to get a Central Executive Committee and line members to all play along into the conveyor belt ascension that took the Leader to the polls.
What has saved our legacy is that the members of the previous Opposition did not endorse him nor did other respected names; which leaves the party with some reputational capital to rebuild on, reconstruct where needed and rehabilitate where necessary.
This is why we are proponents of the original methods, when probity was the compass and candidates for every position were fielded then vetted before being elected.
We’re wondering what could have been penetrated, what systems failed, that allowed this kind of infiltration into a political institution of this magnitude and age and decimate it without early warning. What’s going on with the gate keeping?
The paradox of both legitimacy and failure, here, is that the keeper of the gate infiltrated it.
So, the calls for a debriefing, a campaign autopsy, will not be forthcoming, unless this cornered leader is requesting a political mercy killing, which may be a way out…providing an exit by quiet departure.
And we’re not musing.
There are still beneficiaries of a government once headed by the PNC and stalwarts, by virtue of the capacities in which they served the nation, who are around; most of whom had the political integrity not to endorse this candidate of repute that remains overwhelmingly doubtful.
But, more on the Endorsement Conspiracy which supports our calls for the old fashioned Party teaching of its members, why it is so critical to members knowing their Party’s doctrine, Standard Operational Procedures for members and guidelines for promotions…for starters.
Its’ the age of social media and the vernacular of terms like ‘Influencer’. Statements, not expertise or credibility, rule the space and ‘Influencers’ are stroked with LIKES, emoted facial expressions or a show of volume of visitors.
It’s a game of popularity, not skilled or truthful content creation. It’s the place for people to boast of length of PNC membership, all the previous luminaries with whom they socialized and their purported academic accomplishments, as basis for a concoction we’ve distilled to equations like –‘Previous Party Leaders and top ranking members minus Participation in the 2025 Campaign equal PNCR historic loss at the polls’.
It’s a demonstration of political simple-mindedness… not a pejorative but a clear lack of actual and factual knowledge that is covered under any crash course in political psychology; especially the abbreviated version for introducing a candidate that flunks public perception.
The expulsion of the Leader from the Party by former President Desmond Hoyte, for an absence of requisite public graces, foretold a political disadvantage that had no easy fixes for a candidate so publicly flawed. There are traits that make a personality acceptable to the whole electorate and not just a Party or subsets…which an endorsement would never fix.
And the notion that places the blame on specific members of past PNC Administrations and their Cabinets, for withholding approval of this irredeemable character that parachuted into place, is just –in technical terminology– crap.
There’s a time for wound licking that should never be at the expense of internal analysis that is not objective….nor should it be self-redemptive to save face, already mauled by candidate choice.
It’s, also, a time for honesty and reflection, to gauge alignment with Party Guidelines, evaluate Campaign Messaging and any intermediate check systems that obviously failed, massively, across the Party.
And as a capstone to the act of Endorsement, let’s say this.
The suggestion that there was duty in giving that form of support, is intended to incense those who, sadly, look to these Facebook Gurus for direction.
The insinuation that there was cowardice in withholding support is elevating the former candidate’s naked unsuitability to preeminence.
The conclusion that not endorsing was departure from a long-standing political tradition, is pretending that said tradition got the candidate to nominee, when it was barefaced manipulation of a system rendered vulnerable by connivance and neglect- as evidenced in the blowout that was the Party’s participating effort.
And massaging the idea of him being elected by bulldozing us with some part of the Party Constitution that says he cannot be removed, unless by formal means, is collusion on multiple fronts.
An idealized Leader, erosion of Party rules, favored appointments to Central Executive roles and the complicity of the timid, are all ingredients of a hostile take over.
And its weakened state, its position as the least popular, the most unpopular political entity that is, is enough to have its Constitution leveraged.
Vulnerability at several levels are potential death knells by merger or absorption through predators scavenging the political food chain for soft targets to build out from…aided by say, PNC ‘visionaries’ who see a merger with its historic body as some strategic path forward.
The lowest end of the Parliamentary food chain is the PNC which has become the subject of mockery and a social media laughing stock.
Some of the PNC chatter shops – those which boast of being ‘card carrying’ – have already shopped the ‘merger’, in a combination of backstabbing and betrayal of the Founders of the People’s National Congress, this historic vessel which brought suffrage rights as Proportional Representation to Guyana.
It’s this existential threat to the longevity of the institution of the PNC that calls for the immediate action of leveraging its Constitution…using it to force the removal of the Leader who is not. There are rules and procedures for this grave move…short of a voluntary step away…which, if not done, should be met with every show of no confidence that exists.
Talks, of what transpired in the 70’s, 80’s and more recently, to validate current procedures as operational gospel, fail to address the current and existing problem and guarantees continued failure. Tradition is no excuse, especially when the Constitution seems to be selectively used for personal promotion under shady operations.
If any part of it is currently pertinent, it would be this section :2 ‘OBJECTS’ (1) To create an environment which is favourable to the Party’s winning and maintaining governmental office by electoral means… which Norton has failed so deftly, that he has delivered the worst defeat of the PNC in its sixty eight years of existence.
Our commitment remains that of supporting the PNC not because we vote but because it remains a pillar of Guyana’s political history. And even in this dark hour, it reveals the wisdom upon which it was built, its platform of education and social pedigree which created a status achieved more from work than inheritance, as example for others to follow.
It’s this core that has been weaponized by rivals to make this social ambition ‘elitist’ and pursuit of personal growth ‘classism’ by those who use prejudice to make the small man smaller, in the name of political gain.
What has been immediate damage is the office of Party Leader which is the beacon of the Party. And expecting it to fix itself through the leadership that has made it the most rejected political choice and the entity perceived as the least likely to create national consensus, is grounded in no form of reality.
Party Intervention is the immediate remedy, is our thinking. And we’ve already addressed the sham of a hand picked body by the failed Leader, leading the charge for reform.
This is when the voices of past people are needed. Elders, for us, are not merely those in the day- to- day activities of the Party.
They are former senior officials whose past portfolios, earned during the vibrancy of PNC and its governance, still ascribe seniority and value to their political opinions, especially on this turbulent landscape where the ‘chatasphere’ is dangerous for any prognosis of healing and rebuilding.
Respectability and expertise are two missing traits that our advocacy would inject into a call for replaced leadership to save the Party, which, right now, is a parody of its origin, Facebook fighting with the indignity of defeat and the warrior ethos of uncertainty.
And comments and comedy are not synonymous…especially when your Party is on life support. The use of social media for messaging demands a few things – clarity, precision and a convincing delivery. Otherwise it looks like a try out for the laugh circuit. These are even more reasons why the call for a change in leadership has to be made from the quarters that matter and with the force that is necessary.
The cultivation of sub groups, the grooming of participation to circumvent the dictates of a constitution and standing operating principles to the ascent to leadership and now the demolition of a historic political entity, are the deeds of one person; one person enticed by ambition but outdone by resounding rejection.
To pretend that this fallen leader is capable of re-assembling what has crumbled because of his finagling is abject denial on the parts of those who have the capacity to act but refuse, or are hesitant to do so. It’s also acquiescence by those in the Party who know its lack of accountability and the unconventional methods used to force compliance, the incapability of its leader and the unreality of his pledge to rebuild. Like all of us, they know the distaste the electorate has shown for this entity under its current leadership at both national and local levels.
The Party’s institutional health is of greater importance than the temporary influence of a trounced Leader.
The PNC is an enduring entity with a broad constituency and its viability, as demonstrated over the decades of its existence, depends on its ability to adapt and move past leaders… none of whom have shown incapability like Norton, who has broken it to the depths of its foundation.
For all of the foregoing, expecting the failed leader to step aside is as wishful as the expectation for him to rebuild what he has decimated.
Our featured image of him citing some unknown poll that, allegedly, made him a victor is the kind of un-arrested self-centeredness that has brought us all to this juncture.
Our duty, like that of the other original Party which guards the founding of theirs, is to advocate, unceasingly, for the restoration to normal order of the PNC by calling for the departure of this Leader who has simply been rejected.
Losing at the polls by such huge numbers affirms how unappealing and uninspiring he was to the general electorate which renders him and by extension the PNC, inviable… irrespective of whom he has selected to face his music.
If there’s any appeal to be made to some decency, we’re prepared to give that grace but within a time certain…since every day in its current state is to our collective disadvantage.
