Aubrey Norton: A sympathetic profile

Jun 19, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

Hard Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – There was a time when Mr. Aubrey Norton was a feared political figure. Today, he is a teddy bear.
The bad news for Guyanese is good news for foreigners. Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton likes the new man he has become. When he should be about concentrated fire (figuratively, of course), he is concerned about friendly fire. It is from inside the opposition and the likelihood of that developing from the foreign side of Guyana’s environment.

Think Exxon. The old Norton that his people yearn for would have been raging; the transformed Norton is more about engaging. I told everyone, of Guyana’s top leaders, leave the language to me, focus on the politics. Of oil. They are all tightrope language walkers now, which is why Guyanese are stuck where they are. The richest people in the world scraping the bottom of the barrel. Guyanese don’t want to hear about anything, other than what should be their first, middle, and last names. O-I-L.

Mr. Norton is about cost of living and a livable wage. Good going, skip. We are still stuck at oil. More from oil means more can be done for the cost-of-living traumas, though enough is already on hand to deliver reasonably. Just don’t tell that to the men in red. My problem with the OL is that he has been too muted, too spare a political leader. Too reuse a phrase made famous (notorious, possibly) by a Texas newspaper editor, Guyana needs a man on a horseback.

Everyone thought that Norton fits that profile. I certainly thought so, at the beginning. The challenge for Mr. Norton is that he must become the equivalent of a warrior-priest. The hang up with many dismayed Guyanese, particularly those of the PNC brand, is that their Opposition Leader, by some miraculous conversion, is more of a preacher and less of the fighter on which he made his name. While many Black Guyanese love the gloriously rhythmic chants of Martin (LK), they think the times and circumstances are better suited to the powerful, rocking rhetoric of a Malcolm (X). To be frank, that was never part of the art of one of today’s most watched man in Guyana.

He took his time, but he has stepped up his pressure on new oil discovery numbers, meters at the pumping stations, and that issue that would not go away. It is going beyond insurance coverage. The beast that Exxon does not want to touch, which is full parent company guarantee. Fair is fair, and partners must be genuine partners.

US$2 billion max for insurance if some pipeline out there springs a leak, a valve bursts, or a computer sensor malfunction looks more than lame. It is a lash in the face of every Guyanese. Exxon must be made to see that shrinking away, and hiding, from providing its partner, Guyana, with a full parent company guarantee condemns it to being a bloodsucking parasite and a flesh-eating cannibal rolled into one.
Of course, the Opposition Leader does not have the liberty to use that kind of language in his communications with Exxon. My job as a citizen and as an alarmed watcher demands and empowers me to do so. To go a furlong farther, I believe that I am justified in calling the people at Exxon bigots, and worse, when they abandon my Guyanese brothers and sisters by their dogged resistance to delivering that company guarantee in writing. The Guyanese way of life, their economic existence, is not this cheap. In his own unmistakable words and forceful postures, Mr. Norton has a duty to reinforce that to Exxon.
Clearly, he must be more aggressive, differentiating himself from his political opponents by his attitude toward renegotiation of the contract. He has inched cautiously in that direction, but renegotiation is too loaded and bitter to cross his lips. I think that is a mistake. One of his internal challengers is already separating from him by staking out his line in the sand. There must be ‘changes’ to the contract.

Though Mr. Norton has everything in his favour, including the odds, his own half of the electorate is watching. They don’t like what they see. There is another reality that may now be lost to the OL. A friend who is a PPP Government supporter shared that if he had an inspiring alternative to the group that he has backed all his adult life, he would shift his ‘X.’ The problem for Mr. Norton is that he and his group are ruled out. Too lackadaisical, too unconvincing. There are thousands of highly disgruntled PPP supporters who are in the same state of mind. I see that as more than a missed opportunity for a party without the strength of voting numbers. It is a major mistake in strategy and related activity.

His party’s political nemesis is so corrupt that no day should pass without vocal denouncements being placed in the public domain. A tougher fight should have been waged to get his people on all national oversight bodies. The PNC of Norton is still to get to that pitch. The poor management of the pivotal oil sector had to be his anthem.

Too quiet. The abuses and intimidations of leaders to quell dissent should be challenged and mocked and plastered over the faces of those responsible. Show their vileness. A feather in the OL’s cap is that he has shunned their verbal violence. And the stalking menaces that characterise the style and substance of both president and vice president in their dealings with Guyanese found objectionable.

The independent media has been vilified and victimised, providing mugshots of PPP abuses. Too much time and scarce resources have been wasted on the last elections. Now Mr. Norton has a bit of a fight for his own election. He looks the winner, but the cohesive shape that he and his party must be in for the next national elections could be under some not inconsiderable pressure. As he himself said, the PPP Government has the money. Now, he must be less subdued, come across much sharper, and much stronger.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

Aubrey Norton, Guyana, Hard Truths by GHK Lall, oil, PNC, PPP

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