Six changes in political dynamism, the PNC leader needs to internalise

Jun 15, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – PNC, leader Aubrey Norton said recently that he wants to bring back the PNC to the glorious days of Forbes Burnham. Please see my column of Saturday, May 28, 2022: “There were no glorious days of the PNC under Forbes Burnham.” When you read the reasons below for Norton not wanting to shake the President’s hand, then Norton is telling Guyanese here and in the diaspora that Burnham had a perfect government of an impeccable governance system.
Here are the reasons:
1 – Cannot treat with the president as if it is business as usual
2 – Acts of discrimination by the government
3 – Government continues to sack people it believes are associated with the previous government
4 – Discrimination against citizens when distributing aid
5 – The people of Guyana are not being served in a non-partisan way
6 – The government is disrespectful
The banalities in each statement denote serious lack of leadership qualities of Norton. Every opposition party in the world sings this very song. Which elected government in the democratic world escapes Norton’s fulmination? The democratically elected government of Israel has lost its parliamentary majority.
Forty percent of the parliamentarians in the ruling party in the UK voted against the sitting prime minister in a vote of no-confidence recently. There is an imminent parliamentary election in France in which the opposition parties are making similar claims as Norton did.
The Swedish government recently survived a no-confidence motion by one vote. Many policies implemented by President Trump are still on the books in the Biden administration. In Trinidad, the opposition and ruling party are locked in battle. In India, accusations against Modi government are far more serious than the one Norton makes against Ali presidency.
Which government in the world is so steeped in perfect governance that it makes the Ali presidency look autocratic? The problem with Norton is that during his campaign for the leader position in the PNC, he became the darling of the lunatic fringe (TLF). They feted him on their social media shows and he was given widespread coverage in an opposition online publication named Village Voice.
Norton became trapped in the kind of discourse he surrounded himself with in these situations. He won the battle against Harmon but he is operating in the mode of TLF. He is playing to the TLF gallery. The reasons offered for the refusal to shake the president hand are jejune, poor and also self-defeating.
In a situation where there was mass retrenchment as what Norton’s party, the APNU+AFC, did to the sugar workers; police brutality against protestors; attack on a mainstream media house; arrest of opposition lawyers, then a refusal of a handshake is understandable. To offer broad and generalised reasons as Norton did is infantile and unworkable.
What he has done is to box himself in. From here on, Norton is trapped. He can no longer shake the hand of the President because to do so is to concede that the complaints he composed to justify the snub of the President no longer exist within the political economy of the country.
This should have been one of the great lessons of politics that Norton should have internalised as a leader. Do not box yourself in by making definitive statements about the future. The future is not for any human to see. The dynamics of politics is extremely complex. Little, unknown Guyana is one of the world’s most complex polities. In Guyana, political predictions come close to being impossible.
Every manifestation of Norton’s political deportment since he took over the leader position of his party is characteristic of a street fighter unable to make the transition to diplomatic, multilateral, multi-faceted, multi-pronged activism. The essential fault in Norton’s leadership is that his analysis of Guyana’s present day sociology is outdated.
First, “mofyaah/slo fyaah” is gone for a number of reasons too ponderous to outline here. Secondly, the younger African population is living under different times from 1997, the era of “mo fyaah/slo fyaah”, which they don’t know about. Thirdly, the police and army no longer have a Winston Felix and Edward Collins. The police force today is not going to tolerate street gangs burning buildings.
Fifthly, the mood of the general population is to wait and secure the benefits of an oil economy. Sixthly, only a tiny section of the population takes TLF seriously. Only Norton does. For example, last year, black pudding “maan” used a bullhorn to broadcast to people in Victoria, urging them to undermine the government. The only person with him was a homeless woman who stood behind him robotically saying: “Yes, yes.” Finally, the PNC is not the powerhouse it was in recent years. Norton may soon find out he is a one-man army.
(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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