Opposition Leader

Jun 20, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truth…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – From Ms. Amanza to Mr. Aubrey: ‘ah done.  Ah gone.  Bags packed, ticket booked, goodbye.’  It’s the sum of what she said.  The sum of what I say is, how much more of this can Opposition Leader, Mr. Aubrey Norton weather?  The trickle is enough to make teetotalers tipsy.  Mr. Norton has said before that he is not worried, he’s confident.  I wonder what he is going to say now, especially since I study Cde Roysdale, his potential moves.  Frankly, Mr. Norton’s ship is sailing, but to where and what?  Victory over the PPP has been his steady mantra.  I now share mine.

Disclosures.  I haven’t had the pleasure, prefer not to, of meeting either Big Doctor Jagdeo, or the other.  But I have had the courtesy of Aubrey Norton’s time.  Thoughtful and helpful, getting his measure.  Back then, the expectations were high all around.  Today, some close people are running all over.  It is not looking good; certainly not strengthening as the clock ticks.  The timing is off, appearance horrible, result alarming.  PPP more and more every day, by a whisker.  I may not vote, but still demand a government of merit, clean leadership.  Because such is alien to the PPP of today, and getting more remote hourly, a viable opposition is mandatory.  Not just an opposition in name, but one of substance.  Visible substance; audible, credible substance.  This begins, ends, with the Opposition Leader.  His strengths, his passions, his inspirations that make others willing to charge into machine gun fire and take a hill for him.  Instead of those in the PNC manifesting the willingness to do so under Major Norton, more than a few represent the opposite.  That is, a clean pair of heels.  High heels before, higher heels today; and before both a PNC stalwart who dug in his heels and took some bullets from the PPP for country, people, and the PNC.  Today, he is a salesman for the PPP.  In Guyana, few things are considered worse.  But such are democracy’s drifts and freedoms.

Whatever Mr. Norton may present in the public space, these defections must hurt.  They testify to the confidence (or lack thereof) in his leadership.  Style could be one.  Essence another.  Possibilities still another.  This is costly for the Opposition Leader.  If this is the action, conclusion, and movement, of his people on the inside, it doesn’t leave much for his own people on the outside to go on.  Every vote counts.  But, today, the PPP stands in my assessment in a Cheshire cat’s position: more votes than cups in which to accommodate them.  There is full understanding that the opposition has little by way of jobs, contracts, cash, duty-free concessions, prime lands to offer its disgruntled and ambitious.  Moreover, it has no standing to make charges that may be pending disappear in the closet, and held in reserve for any bad boys or girl, who get ideas of going back to the PNC.  But this is where a leader has to be at his best, inspire the faltering troops to the glories awaiting.

I point Guyanese to Fidel Castro of Cuba.  Before him, there was China’s Mao Zedong.  What did those emptyhanded leaders have to offer their believers?  Forget about Winston Churchill and his verbal ‘blood, sweat, and tears, transcendences.  What Fidel and Mao had was that strange inner aura known as charisma.  A little bit of the old machismo also helped.  A heavy hand, steel-tipped boot had their uses.  Unfortunately, Aubrey Norton doesn’t measure well in those departments.  He has gone from a feared street dragon to an all-too-cool diplomat.  Some have interpreted that as weakness, a fatal one.  Whatever it is, the PNC is losing tonnage under his command.  Of course, he has not been helped from day one by his own people in his own party, with whom he ran the streets, reached the rafters.  How does a leader succeed, when everyone believes that he or she could be a better leader?  Or when past leaders were never sold on him, dug holes in his path?  I sensed that he was a man ordained to fight a war with one hand tied behind his back, and one foot attached to one of those ancient PNC cannonballs.

All this has been to Big Boss Bharrat’s advantage, and he isn’t the kind that allows opportunity to go abegging.  Those who say they endorse, have expressed no remorse.  What happened to the Colossus that was the PNC?  The leadership that was Kim and Vlad and Modi all blended into one?  Though he is sure to disagree, all of this has wounded Mr. Norton’s grievously.  If not so, then enough to leave the PNC looking like an aged punching bag past its prime.

The only issue remaining is who’s next and when?  One more: and into whose loving, welcoming arms they are going.

(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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• 2025 elections, Amanza, Aubrey Norton, GHK Lall, hard truths

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