What started out as perhaps an improbable journey ended in certain victory today for Aubrey C. Norton, elected Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) at its 21st Biannual Delegates Congress. Any number of events independently could earn this Congress its label “historic”: the hybrid nature of the conclave in view of a ubiquitous coronavirus, COVID-19, and its attendant variants; or once considered formidable contenders David Granger’s and Volda Lawrence’s absence from the ballot. Events precipitating what Leader-nominee and former Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Greenidge characterized as an,” obvious crisis of leadership”.
When results are official, via its Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Vincent Alexander, Norton will take charge of the 64 year-old political monolithic establishment, older than the Republic; its experience deeply woven into the political fabric of the nation. Recent-past Party Chairman Volda Lawrence, in her remarks to delegates, intimated the reality for the setting of the Congress. “This Congress”, the former Minister of Health said, “finds us at critical crossroads of our Party’s future.” Listeners perhaps took away that this meant confronting frontally its main rival – the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPC) – among other desperate challenges.
The campaign burst internal party confines, spilling out into the glare of the national stage, and Norton will have to be both Leader and Healer after a hotly fought contest and bruising campaign. Recent-past General Secretary Amna Ally laid out in stark terms in her Report the road ahead, stating, “our party endured a lot of slippages, hate and discomfort at the run up to this Congress but I would like to request of you to put these moments behind you, consolidate our gains and take a common position to get the PPP out of office and return our party to power.”
Whatever Norton’s game plan for defeating the PNCR’s aged adversary begins by binding up wounds at home. Mr. Granger, now former leader of the PNCR and former President, in his address to delegates early in the day stated that much can change in the party’s political culture by “suppressing schisms and factionalism for the common good.” Demerara Waves reported him as saying, ‘The present decade demands rededication to the people’s development and “should not be allowed to become another period of personal rivalry.’
Despite CEO Alexander’s limited pronouncements, information emanating from Congress Place, Sophia, suggest a landslide victory for Aubrey Norton, carrying most of his slate; a NewsSource report also suggested rival Joseph Harmon has already conceded defeat, shaking up the political establishment that is the PNCR. Norton from all indications appears set to clinch victories definitively in five of ten regions (4, 5, 8, 9 & 10) delegates were spread across locally, as one person boldly boasted on social media, “There’s a new Sheriff in town.”
Whatever portends on the road ahead as Norton takes charge, one thing is certain his party’s people voted for change.
More, In The Ring.
