PNC resignations driven by assessment, not bribes – VP Jagdeo

General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC), Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, has refuted claims made by Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton that resignations from the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) have resulted from bribery done by the ruling party.
Speaking at his weekly press conference last Thursday, Jagdeo argued that those leaving the PNC/R have made independent assessments of the party’s leadership and future, rather than being influenced by financial incentives.
Norton has suggested that the PNC gained 10,000 new members since the last election, but has simultaneously dismissed the departure of several key activists. He attributed the exodus to bribery by the PPP, a claim that Jagdeo called both fictitious and insulting to those who have chosen to leave the party.
In criticising Norton’s remarks, Jagdeo emphasised that the Opposition Leader’s rhetoric reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of why people are abandoning the party, and he noted that Norton’s refusal to acknowledge these internal issues would lead to further decline for the PNC.

“The view (is) that people will only leave the PNC not because of his inept leadership; not because of their failure in Government to fulfil their promises; not because of their lack of any vision or plan for the future; not because they are propagating a failed ideology of race; but because PPP is bribing them – as though former PNC members, and particularly Afro-Guyanese, don’t have the capacity to make independent judgment. That is how disparaging a view he has of them, and this is something that is typical of the PNC,” Dr Jagdeo posited.
Since 2020, several prominent members of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) have resigned from the party. In 2021, Thandi McAllister, a longstanding member and Central Executive Committee (CEC) member to boot, resigned, citing that the leadership’s direction was not aligned with the aspirations of young people, party supporters, and national development.
Since her departure, other members have resigned, including Faaiz Mursaline and Dawn Hastings-Williams; and recently, Amna Ally, who was a former General Secretary and Minister for the Opposition party, resigned.
According to the Vice President, Norton’s misrepresentation of these departures shows how “divorced from reality” he is, especially because of the PNC’s limited engagement with people, and its poor policy formulation.
“Mr. Norton should be writing fiction. He said that he is unbothered by the large number of people who have left the party, and he acknowledged that people will continue to leave the PNC, but he said that the members leaving would give him more breathing room…,” Jagdeo has said.
“I think it was a rare acknowledgement of the truth: that it’s not more breathing room; it would allow him to conduct the divisive politics that he’s accustomed to, and that he’s unwilling to move away from; that is: using race as the lens through which he sees everything,” Jagdeo said.