We don’t like to think of political damnation.
Even the candidate who broke the Peoples National Congress- PNC – into pieces, too many for a puzzle, doesn’t quite get us there.
We viscerally disagree with most of what he labels politicking.
But it is often, so concurrently counter-expertise and fundamentally impractical, it forces us to think of why he’s so committed to demonstrating that he can, literally, fail harder than most and wants several consecutive tries to break his own record.
We’re done thinking of some knavish goal, some insidious plot to dismantle the PNC – an indelible pillar of national political history. He’s already demonstrated a certain ineptitude to even decimate the political party, a clumsiness that makes obliteration a fleeing opponent.
Small comforts will suffice in a time when Party Constitution and policies and rules and laws have been too under-kept to expect him to leave, even if it was just, 17.7% of the national electorate that chose him to be their President.
No honorable resignation because he was ruinous. That requires a fitment of morals with some rivets of integrity.
So now, we’re doing Street Parliament… ‘bringing facts and truth to the people’; an effort that is well respected when used tactically, per the Political Good Book. It boils down to balanced parts of strategy and tactics with timing and momentum.
And as the saying goes, the core of populism begins at home.
It was not lost on anyone why the residents of Mocha, with a rich ancestral history, would’ve called on the Opposition Leader, WIN, on/around February 16th 2026, to air grievances.
We’re not saying that their APNU representative was not called.
What we’re saying is that WIN went and the Public Relations around this visit has earned APNU and its Representative zero points… even if WIN is the elected Opposition.
This is all part of the populist package…the one related to Street Parliament.
If your home representatives are less desireabled/passed over, because of confidence in “the other man”, then lots of the street Parliament credo has to be taught at home before it’s taken to the streets…especially when this APNU Representative is a neighbor, homesteading, in Mocha.
Or did the MP have less confidence in an APNU tête-à-tête with WIN than in a direct constituent grievance session with Mohamed??
If that was the calculus then Ground Rules and House Rules, if at all in place, may need to be tweaked.
Wanting the best for constituents is always the goal but circumventing protocol has deleterious drawbacks. The primary one is an erosion of authority. And, just as serious is the perception of Party inability. After that comes the feeling that the favor-seeker is a good cross- over target.
But, back to the Street Parliament which made its APNU debut at Stabroek Market Square on February 20ᵗʰ, 2026.
What was the strategy in the appearance of Aubrey Norton at the People’s Parliament, if not to remind them of the trail of political debris that is his legacy? What benefit was there in mounting, on the podium, the decided loser whose lopsided licking was the first of its kind in Guyana’s political history?
We’ve heard the grumblings, of him clinging to Leadership, flexing some flaccid political muscle to keep his preferred operatives in check by waving his control of ‘The List’ over their heads. Unfazed by nose-dived glory, he insists on being front and center.
There’s even more talk, too, about the up coming Congress in August. There’s palpable unease over the PNC delegate system that assigns voters to determine leadership. There’s virtual panic over the system being manipulated to keep Norton in place.
References name a former female MP as being victim of “the man from GECOM”, who is known to engineer ballots, to favor Norton.Alarm lies in his potential for finagling to preserve Norton’s designation of Leader, Political Scientist, Chairman or what ever sticker he fancies by August 2026, when Congress rolls around.
And it’s not idle alarm. It’s more probable than possible, is the decided sentiment.
Norton has ably demonstrated an inhuman resistance to shame and a gluttony for high positions which his occupancy degenerates to skill-less and predatorial, on system vulnerabilities. He has made the weaknesses of the Party’s outdated Constitution and Operation’s Manual his personal buffet, as he flips off accountabilitiy as optional.
He comes finagling – ready. He has latched on to leadership, lunging through ill-fitting titles just to wear them. Status and optics are what drives him…it is said.
So when he headlines the Street Parliament, it’s not about the Party. It’s not about strategic messsaging, how it is packaged or delivered…none of which he has referential history of.
It’s his signature screed of negative politicking that headlines; motivating through condemnation of opponents, stoking fear of ‘the other’. It’s the one-dimesional jaw-grinding delivery of greivances and not solutions.
That was the overall tone at Stabroek Square .
And that decibel factor.
Political messaging is more than loud talking and folksy slangs with some tinged language added for the ‘down to earth’ moniker. Like Street Parliament, which is not just a gathering, it is steeped in strategy aimed at reaching past its own Party members and winning the interest of others.
It arrests the disenchanted and those tired of Party rhetoric, as it breaks down the purpose of government. Complaining about double counting and hyper-inflated estimates are meaningless if you offer no counter valence. This is especially so when your budget debate was more narrative than numerical, a remonstrative jawing, rather than a detailed alternative with constructive fiscal policy.
And can we talk about the musical pre and interludes, the tones and the lyrics that create a disconnect from the intended seriousness of the message?
Everything is not a wine down.
Unless politicians teach their followers to separate engagement from entertainment, then the People’s Parliament is just another assembly of bodies to listen to music rather than the essence, the substantive dialogue, that should be the message.
It’s all about organization. Organization is all about Strategic planning. This type of planning is all about foresight and intelligent anticipation. Anticipation demands looking back at precedents, pitfalls and current status.
This combination of activities has been credited for successful Street Parliaments around the world, informs successful people powered movements.
The initial People’s Parliament, Feb 20th was a test drive. What ever caused the 2nd People’s Parliament scheduled for March 6th to be canceled and rescheduled for March 13th should be as much a cautionary tale as it is to give more runway to tweak its upcoming engagements.
Planning, at this level, is more than securing an event date. It is a continuous affirmation of logistics and attendees. Cancellations may suggest administrative shortcomings like lack of planning, may cause reputational damage, disinterest in the cause- particularly if it was not for uncontrollable situations like bad weather.
This brings us back to the Political Damnation we hate to contemplate.
Incremental steps in the wrong direction, we’re thinking. Two publicized meetings, one a ‘family gathering’ and the other canceled are not notes of inspiration.
We are all for the reboot to avert impending irrelevance…gauging the rejection at the polls and demotion in Parliament. Negative leadership quality, massive loss of votes, displacement from elected Opposition are signs of decay and precursors to insignificance.
And this is what we fear.
Irrelevance is dissolution and we are anti any erasure of any Guyanese history, let alone ours, which is under perpetual assault.
Struggles and achievements, especially hard fought and won, like the formation of the Peoples National Congress, are not trivia that should be lost because of poor stewardship or inattentive gatekeepers.
The Party’s negligence, laxity and noncompliance when it came to keeping operational procedures current, is a failure of Duty to Care which comes with the titles members vie for. Yet, there remains this conveyor belt continuance of rolling along, ignoring the disrepair, planning around the busted, stepping over the rot and calling it a charge forward to some new beginning.
Accelrated collapse and new beginnings are at different ends of the progress spectrum.
We understand the bravado, the political machismo, the ‘solid twelve’ quasi-branding and the barging forward in a show of pretend strength, when lived experiences inform the electorate that it’s a coping mechanism poorly hidden.
There’s a thing called toxic positivity which breeds toxic momentum with the operative word being toxic. We’re only consumers. We don’t practice the profession. But what we know is that keeping up appearances is strategy- deficient and, generally, a fools errand.
It’s more than antics, not strictly race and a believable approach that moves voters.
And if the reboot embraces Aubrey Norton, whose virtue meter leans to the left of morality and the MP’s submit to his hostage taking, then there is no incentive to support the Party with a loser and a captor in its midst, let alone at its helm.
Street Parliaments don’t deflect a Party’s political damnation.
Leading operatives, like its Members of Parliament do.
