PNC CONGRESS??
It is July 2026.
Any word of the Congress promised for August 2026, after the Party was led to virtual decimation by its self-installed candidate?
Yes, we saw the article where Norton, UNILATERALLY, declared that the Central Executive of the PNC which, constitutionally, is an independent entity, will postpone Congress until 2027.
Norton is a man of multiple, self-assigned designations. While we might laugh off his ‘See-Far’ powers here, this is too critical to ignore.
The survival of this Party is at stake. It was crafted for a specific demographic by a son of ancestors upon whose backs the nation was built. It is a history that should endure like the major Parties of the West. It carries the gravitas, as the recipient of the instruments of Independence, from the nation’s colonial masters.
Like the nation’s other major Party of similar construct, PNC is an inheritance that should be as foundational an institution. To shrug and ignore Norton’s hostile take over would be a dereliction of collective duty.
After the unexpected – yet predictable – wipe out APNU suffered in the September 2025 General elections, agony took refuge in its upcoming August 2026 Congress, to dismiss the man resoundingly rejected by the electorate.
Waiting on Congress to do something that should’ve been expedited, was never the best move. And the proponents of that strategy were, apparently, never the best people.
The party is a business to be run.
A business runs for profit. Profit is victory secured by a candidate with sufficient appeal to attract and win votes. This rejection affirms that the flaw lies in candidacy and a core membership that failed, in its responsibility to examine viability above camaraderie.
The absence of haste, to look past the loser to protect what was left of the institution of the Party, foretold a damage that could go well beyond immediate political loss.
Systemic ruin was the thing to be saved. But the cavalry never came.
What was the ‘break glass’ solution to this impending cataclysm? What’s in all of those Party policy documents, the rules and regulations, to assuage an emergency of this magnitude?
Norton, himself, had given us an idea of Party ethos…. when he mocked Hoyte’s 1997 loss and called for him to resign over the loss of 5 seats.
Faced with his comparative wipe out, the rules suddenly changed. He was the guy now calling for a do-over within 72 hours of his magnitudinous loss.
That was more than political entitlement and desperation. On his roulette wheel, there was a ‘win’ somewhere and he’d be damned if he left without it – having machinated and ruminated to get to spin the wheel, at all.
Unfazed by rejection– the cousin of inherent malice – is the take away here. And, not employing his own ‘resign solution’ made malice more his destination than a goal.
The pussyfooting around the call for him to practice as he preached- RESIGN- read like fear and trembling. It was the quiet acknowledgment that their leader was a terrorist and they, like their Party, were his hostages.
Talk of extending grace for him to leave with dignity always read like an oxymoron– since he gave grace no quarter when Hoyte lost.
And he, hovering over the Party after unquestionable rejection, brooding with separation anxiety that suggested malice – the repellent to grace.
The imagery of protecting ego instead of institution became national observation not missed by the resident diplomats, including China. That he has remained atop the heap of the Party political rubble, spinning and selecting titles by which to self -identify, describes a political piracy that those diplomatic notes are sure to have captured frequently and with depth.
And, the personality analysis is never done in isolation. Embassies meticulously evaluate the Opposition’s personnel and policy platforms to gauge favorability to their country’s agreements with Guyana.
We’ll submit – sight unseen– that the PNC is regarded as a lesser contender, not because of its trouncing at the polls but because the loser still leads and those for whom he has created some employment, acquiesce.
There is a case to be made that academic qualifications doth not an astute politician make. But blind following by people who should know better has a bad smell to it.
Following, calculatedly, adds to the doom of the Party’s viability…especially through the lens of the foreign community.
The mix of academia and ineptitude doesn’t do well for the Party’s portfolio. And this is what was always at stake, the beating heart of its existence, now in political cardiac arrest because of rancid stewardship.
To merely see resident diplomats as routine, bilateral, accommodation is to misunderstand the role of a politician and perception – by duty– of a diplomat.
These are spies of a lesser level who assiduously report, to their countries, everything Guyana does.
They were chroniclers of the period of ‘The Troubles” … the reign of criminal mayhem in Guyana between 2002 and 2010. They already have a schematic of PPP, its members and their character diagnoses.
And, the breakdown.
Their ‘national security’, for North America, includes knowing the weaknesses of its backyard. Same applies to the United Kingdom which has a political alliance and to nonaligned Countries, like China, which has an investment to protect.
The overarching point is that a strong Opposition is one that is ready for an undertaking of this magnitude.
And this brings us back to why the convention of Congress, slow in coming, reads like the plot to usurp extended time in office by the Leader, who has a steel grip on the Party he stole.
There’s, also, this self-massaging notion that he would be seen as abandoning the Party if he were to resign…cloaked in clumsy shade to how David Granger left.
For the record, Granger handed 31 seats to Norton which was the range of seat -changes when politicians of strategic acumen and cross-over appeal ran for PNC Leadership. It is t this moment that are reminded that he still receives a salary-albeit less than his previous position.
But moving right along.
Early Party members recall an organization that was orderly and efficient, holding true to constitution and policies. They witnessed transition from founder, through subsequent leaders, with a respect for its Constitution and regard for procedure. There was legacy of institutional stability and prioritization of lawful transitions over power.
The word is that Norton, currently the Party’s general factotum, is engineering a new scheme.
Per concerns, it is similar to the one that made him an unchallenged candidate for leader.
The premise is his control of ‘The List’ by which he appoints MP’s to salaried jobs in Parliament. Financial leverage, effectively, discourages internal opposition or challenges.
Then there is a Central Executive Committee. Though not a paying job many members hold separate paid public office ..
hmmm – intrinsic degrees of separation in the political arena, subtle but never insurmountable, where favors can be asked and opportunities denied.
Norton’s foreknowledge that the Independent Central Executive Committee will announce a Congress for 2027 is a Shakespearean give away of cookup and collusion. It, also, attests to his political acuity.
Maybe he, like the characters in those plays, is being plagued by the demons of his his own misdeeds. In the theater of politics, giving away the plot is too amateur at this level.
Maybe the ghosts of leaders past are on duty…the one’s who felt he lacked the traits to sit in the Party’s highest seat, from the get go.
Whatever it is, let history record that the once respected PNC is now a squatting ground for any combination of the overly ambitious with the resume of a charlatan.
It is an indictment we wish we didn’t have to make. But political evidence is often palpable.
We’re not judging internal decay. We’re witnessing it.
We’re not accusing officers of staying silent. They’re keeping it.
And, amidst all this, we’re accused of unfair journalism.
Look.
As we once read, ‘in life’s unforgiving arithmetic, we are the sum of our choices’.
We don’t know all the variables needed for the winning formula but we are certain that silence plus complicity will yield exactly zero remedy.
