PNC election results 2021, part 2: Norton faces colour and class

Dec 24, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – The mullato middle class (MMC) was reluctant to back Forbes Burnham. The League of Coloured People (LCP) wasn’t comfortable with Burnham’s flirtation with socialism and the “lesser breed” that populated the PNC.
But when the LCP’s political wing, the National Democratic Party under John Carter, joined with Burnham, the entire mullato class in British Guiana, without exception, including Rory Westmaas and Martin Carter, backed Burnham because only Burnham and his party could keep out the Indians from coming to Georgetown.
The MMC saw Burnham going into a direction they could never have conceived. Carter bolted to the US with his American-born elitist model wife. The MMC was distraught. They wanted Burnham out. The MMC then recruited Walter Rodney to remove Burnham. Despite all the praise for his revolutionary credentials, Rodney was embedded within the MMC and accepted their social and cultural world.
At the request of one of the most brilliant analysts of the Caribbean’s social and political evolution, American born Caucasian professor, Jay Mandle, I was asked to express my thoughts on why Rodney didn’t form an alliance with Cheddi Jagan. The reason was Rodney’s helpless imprisonment in the MMC. More on that later.
When Burnham died, his apology to the MMC was left unwritten but it took the form of Desmond Hoyte. Burnham in his grave made sure he left someone who had come from the MMC. Burnham knew Hamilton Green did have the colour and class standing to rule Guyana.
If the MMC was livid after Burnham’s betrayal of them, they were degutted when Hoyte lost the 1992 election and the Indians had finally arrived at the gates. Successive PPP election victories disheartened the MMC because there was no longer a strong WPA to remove the PPP.
The moment of truth came for the MMC after Hoyte’s death. The MMC hated Corbin, disassociated themselves from him and the PNC and starved the PNC of money. Just as they birthed the WPA to remove Burnham in the 70s they did so at the beginning of the 21st century with the AFC. Unlimited funds went into the AFC including money from the US government.
In 2006, the MMC denuded Corbin and the PNC. Corbin knew it was over for him. The MMC turned to Rupert Roopnaraine, the jewel in the crown for the MMC, the purest custodian of the world of the MMC. Knowing the class that Granger came from, Roopnaraine had no hesitation in making Granger the head of a new formation with the PNC and WPA called APNU.
In 2011 and 2015, the MMC finally defeated the Indians. When Granger and Raphael Trotman spoke at the airport in Nassau, Bahamas, years before 2015, the plan was for the MMC to birth their own party to achieve two goals – return political influence to the MMC by an alliance with the PNC and ensure the return of a PNC government.
This explains the telephone call from Granger to Trotman after the victory in May 2015 when Granger said, “Raphael this is Nassau.” But history repeated itself. Hoyte devastated the MMC with his loss in 1992. Granger decapitated the MMC with his loss in 2020. The Indians came back at the gates.
The time for class contempt had come back. If Corbin was despised in 2002, Aubrey Norton will be treated with the same disdain the MMC has forever shown the Indians. The MMC will not associate with Norton. They believe he is not MMC material just as Corbin wasn’t. They will not give the PNC any funds. The businesses that bankrolled Hoyte and Granger will chase away Norton.
In 2025, the MMC will do one of two things. They will either try to resurrect the AFC asking Nigel Hughes to return and pleading with Dominic Gaskin to become the leader or they will put their money behind probably ANUG with Timothy Jonas as the leader.
Norton will be crushed in 2025 in the identical fashion Corbin was in the 2006 general elections. Even if Norton doesn’t accept the election results of a PPP victory in 2025, the MMC will still not embrace him. Norton could try to relight mo/fyaah/slo fyaah in 2025 but still the MMC will not accept him.
What the MMC will do in 2026 is what they did to Corbin in 2006 when the AFC took six seats from the PNC. Norton is going to face enormous pressure to “call it George” in 2026. By that time he will be 70 years of age and the MMC will be indentifying younger blood to replace him. If Norton fights the MMC in 2026 and chooses to stay on, the MMC will destroy him and the PNC. Norton’s reign as PNC leader is fated to die like a withered rose.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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