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PNCR considering contesting 2025 elections without coalition partners
Kaieteur News – Leader of the People’s National Congress/ Reform (PNC/R) Aubrey Norton has stated that his party is strong enough to contest the 2025 General and Regional Elections alone if they have to.
Leader of the Opposition, Aubrey Norton
During a radio interview on Tuesday, Norton was asked if the PNCR was considering going to the polls without its coalition partners and he responded, “In politics, you never, say never, you have to analyze the situation and as it emerges, you make the decisions… We are open to coalition but we are a strong enough party if we have to go we can do that.”
Norton was recently re-elected as leader of the PNCR. The PNCR is the largest party of the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), which is made up of other small parties. In 2015, APNU joined forces with the Alliance for Change (AFC) and contested the elections together. However, in 2022, the AFC broke ties with the Coalition.
The PNC/R leader was asked about a letter from APNU which states that he was invited to a meeting and he never responded, so they went ahead with the elections and he was stricken as Chairman of the APNU.
Norton responded, “I am still the chairman. The most critical party in the APNU is the PNC. That’s the first thing.” He went onto state that the he was never invited to the meeting so the elections are null and void, leaving him as the legitimate Chairman.
The PNCR leader said, “One I was never invited to meet [APNU], two…so I continue to be the chairman of the APNU. I have engaged some of the actors and I will continue to do that…I will meet with the WPA [Working People’s Alliance] shortly because one of the things we were doing is negotiating with the WPA for them to return and they have indicated that they are willing to return.”
He noted too that he found it interesting that the APNU published a letter stating that they invited him to the meeting, while he did not receive an invite.
A motion was passed that the elected Party Leader at the 22nd Biennial Delegates Congress will be the PNCR’s Presidential Candidate for the next General and Regional elections. This decision solidifies Norton’s position as the central figure leading the party into the upcoming elections.
However, Norton had stated that despite that motion he is open to a consensual candidate. Expounding on this, Norton explained that he had no issue with someone else from the PNCR being the presidential candidate.
He added, “…In the APNU, the only political party that can claim to have ever gained significant votes to form a government is the PNCR.”
To this end, he said he believes that the largest political party in the coalition should be entitled to the presidential candidate position.
“Which political party will have more than 90 percent of the support… [and] would give its power for the want of a better word, to 5 or 10 percent it makes no sense,” he noted.
The PNCR leader added that as the largest and strongest party in the coalition, he don’t see it fit to give the leadership to someone of another party.
“We have worked and mobilized and the hard work we would have done will have to be for the benefit of the PNC,” Norton stated.
Notably, when asked about a presidential candidate from the coalition itself Norton said, “I am supportive of anybody coming out as a viable candidate but there’s an assumption you’re making, first of all intellectually the PNC has people with capabilities including myself…”
He explained that the presidential candidate must be someone with the vigor to stand up to the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C). “The question of politics you have to have an appetite for it…” Norton said.
Moreover, Norton was also asked if he is prepared to have a chat with the newly elected leader of the AFC, Nigel Hughes.
“I think we must, I don’t see no reason why we shouldn’t,” he responded.
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