Last roundup, last pre-election evaluation — PNC’s Norton

Aug 26, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

Kaieteur News – The PNC’s Aubrey Norton may have started out as slow as a turtle, but he has made up more ground than his competition. Despite the loss of some crossovers, he looks more settled than when the election game began. He laid low, spoke in low tones, and readies to make a low dash to get in under the wire for the unexpected.

A respectable standing on September 1^st. He left the bright lights and bad boy behaviors to the PPP leadership and its goon squads, and now Mr. Norton looks like Mr. Sweet and Mr. Clean. For the first time in the history of elections in Guyana, in the annals of the PNC, when the subject is rigging, the PNC’s name is missing. Remarkable, I say. A tribute to the crude skills of the PPP and its snaky efforts at election creativity to get any unsavory edge.

Aubrey Norton’s PNC may not win. But of one result it is assured: the PNC cannot lose, come next Monday. What is that? The luck of the draw? A drawdown on the rash of costly PPP failures? A drawback on the heinous nature of the PPP indifference to the plights of the poor, the pain of those on Guyana’s starvation line? Starvation line in the world’s fastest growing economy, no way?

Poverty line in a country already celebrating daily production of 650,000, nah. How can that be is a question for the PPP, which is why Norton is smirking? National stats like poverty rate and unemployment numbers being hidden, in a country now on the threshold of producing 900,000 barrels of the sweet stuff a day, the highest per capita daily production globally. That explains why the PPP is now left scrambling over how much it will do in the next five years. What was the PPP doing besides mismanagement and self-enrichments (“national development priorities”) in the last five years?

What was Bharrat Jagdeo, ace card shuffler, doing on those Thursday afternoons, but provide the PNC leader with fuel to runover him on the way to September 1? Whenever the VP cussed out the PNC for past rigging, he left the door open for the PNC to steamroll him now over the PPP’s own open book attempts at current rigging. When census results have to be hidden for more than two years and counting, that says the ruling PPP has run out of people.

The PNC doesn’t have to check with the US Embassy or the records of the last five years (and before) of the State Department’s migration numbers from Guyana. Simply stand at Timehri International and count the departures, and who’s doing so. Then watch Vice President Jagdeo try his hand at the next to impossible: doing the hula-hoop while hopscotching sideways with the last census numbers. Recall what I said earlier: Aubrey Norton knows that the PNC can’t lose, because he also knows that Bharrat Jagdeo’s PPP can’t win. Concealing the census results produced the same conclusion as revealing them.

Hence, while the PPP skittered about with its clever games, plus a handy assist from a now notorious state agency, Norton stayed calm and nodded his head: just look at those Guyanese kangaroos. Note how the big men of the PPP are skipping around and hopping about, as if on hot coals.

They are trying feverishly to get away from the heat of the wrongs that they stockpiled over the last half-decade. It’s tiring, so not worth saying -that one about unexplained wealth, especially accumulations of prime real estate. When ministers should have been managing their portfolios, they were too busy managing their bank accounts and managing their under-the-table property portfolios. All of this meant that Mr. Norton didn’t have much work to do, less to say, and little that he had to put on the table, since the PPP controlled the money. With that its people each had a self-destruct button. The hardest part of Norton’s job was to bide his time, and bite his tongue. Don’t get into a catfight with Jagdeo. He did well. Now he stands well-poised to throw sand in the PPP bulldozer.

His base has returned, including the segments that used to call him some dirty names. He has walked a steady line, while watching the PPP erosion continue uninterrupted. The more additions the PPP boasted, the more the ruling party’s erosions became pronounced. Come to think of it, the PNC and Aubrey Norton had a manifesto that couldn’t be beaten. With all that the money that the PPP had, no government could be that bad. With the national prosperity of the last five years, there shouldn’t be one Guyanese living in poverty. PPP-induced Guyanese pain is the PNC gain. The PPP can’t win, and the PNC can’t lose. I call that a draw.

(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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Aubrey Norton, evaluation, GHK Lall, PNC

One thought on “Last roundup, last pre-election evaluation — PNC’s Norton ”

Jof haynes August 26, 2025 at 10:16 am

regardless of race religion or ethnicity, the truth is that the average guyanese going to the polls is unable to live a decent life in today’s Guyana.something smells foul when the achievement of the current government official is so vast,when compared to the time they took office,while the average guyanese is living at or below the poverty line.its time for better management…to the voter.examine your life and compare it to those who are in government,and ask yourself this question.. should I continue down this path or should I reconsider who will best manage in my favor.

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