…but exposing the real PNC
The reason Aubrey Norton’s been hiding from the public gaze the past few years could be he’s suffering from vertigo. You know…a feeling that you’re falling down so you need to be supported all the time. This thought came to your Eyewitness when he viewed a tape of a “PNC press conference” with Norton flanked by two persons on either side, who were COMPLETELY mute for the duration of the presser.
Now it could be the persons were there as props to signal that the PNC was “multiracial”, since one was some nondescript Indian-Guyanese fella and the other was the Amerindian Junior Minister, Dawn Hastings. But your Eyewitness hopes young Guyanese – and both flanking mutes were young – aren’t succumbing to the old PNC practice of using ethnic tokens. They should know history has confirmed that, like its generic category, political tokens have no value in themselves. They’re simply TOKENS!!
But an interesting question is, why did the PNC do a Lazarus on Norton to resurrect him from the political graveyard he’d been buried in since the PNC-led Government took office in 2015?? And the answer is that Granger, like Desmond Hoyte before him, wanted to change the thug image of the PNC it had earned from the 1960s on the tracks of folks like Hamilton Green and Robert Corbin et al. He figured the PNC needed a “kinder, gentler” image to sidle into office without the Burnhamite riggings.
And Norton certainly didn’t fit this image!! He’d been summarily dismissed from his post as General Secretary of the PNC by party leader Desmond Hoyte after one year for his rambunctious behaviour. Hoyte called Norton his “creature” to remind him he should know his “place”. He was brought back by Corbin who succeeded Hoyte as PNC leader during the “mo fyaah; slow fyaah” days. But ran afoul of Corbin when he was ousted as Chairman of the Georgetown District in favour of Volda Lawrence, a Corbin protégé. Similarly, he teed off Granger when he claimed the latter beat him from the leadership position because of “rigging”.
But like Freddy Krueger, Norton’s back!! The big question is “Why?” From his pugnacious and aggressive behaviour and vocabulary at the presser, it’s clear it’s because the PNC hardliners have been shaken by the results of the no-confidence vote and are falling back on what’s worked for them since the 60s – thuggery, brute force and ignorance!! They reject the line taken by Nagamootoo, Lawrence and Granger – and have picked Norton as their attack dog!
And attack he did – with wild and inflammatory allegations of Jagdeo’s “bribing” Charrandas Persaud and being “oil money obsessed”!
Norton has exposed the real (thuggish) PNC!!
… to hide PNC’s desperation
For the PNC to reveal it’s true face so openly means they’re scared sh*itless at losing office through the No-confidence Motion – which has now been recorded as a binding RESOLUTION by the parliamentary Clerk. And the rabid rantings about Jagdeo being “oil money obsessed” tells you why: with political power, they can suck up the oil money!! Burnham openly acknowledged he followed Nkrumah’s dictum: “Seek ye first the political kingdom and all things shall be added unto you.” Especially money!!
On the matter of “political bribery”. As an old head in the PNC, Norton would know that in preparing to seize power in 1968 through electoral rigging, Burnham had bribed Sheik Mohamed Saffee and Zaheeruddeen from the PPP and Randolph Cheeks from the UF to cross the floor in 1967. When bribery didn’t work, there was always violence, like when they dangled trade unionist Gordon Todd over the Atlantic from a helicopter.
As for the “criminalised state” they’re trying to tag on Jagdeo, just read the Rodney CoI Report!!
…with fake news
Norton couldn’t provide a shred of evidence of Persaud being bribed by the PPP when pressed by reporters, so of course, had to keep backing up to admit it was “he seh; dem seh”!!
PNC fake news!!
