January 29 ,2022

Source

The Alliance For Change (AFC) yesterday threw its support behind PNCR leader Aubrey Norton to be the new Leader of the Opposition, sources said, but there was no sign that former President David Granger, the Representative of the List for the main opposition coalition, was making attempts to facilitate the change.

Support from the AFC is seen as significant in Norton’s quest to become Opposition Leader as it is the second largest party in the APNU+AFC coalition.

“The AFC will participate in electing an Opposition Leader only if that person is Aubrey Norton. Because Mr. Granger still is the deciding factor on who will be removed to allow for Norton entering parliament, we await that decision,” an AFC Executive yesterday told Stabroek News following a meeting between the PNCR and the AFC.

“No! We do not know if that decision will be made by Monday or by the end of next week. Talks continue and we will see how that process goes…,” the executive added.

Granger, this newspaper was told, has not signalled a position on Norton being a parliamentary representative and has had no other meetings with the PNCR on the issue.

When the PNCR and the AFC met yesterday, sources said that discussions centred on AFC support for the selection of a Leader of the Opposition and not Representative of the List.

The two sides, this newspaper was told, were both concerned that with debates beginning next week on Budget 2022, “the optics look bad — that there isn’t an Opposition Leader”.

It was pointed out during the meeting that one hour of debate time is allotted to the Leader of the Opposition for a rebuttal on the budget.

The APNU+AFC Chief Whip will have to nominate a person to give that presentation and  sources said and the two parties have not yet agreed on who that person would be as they both are “hoping that it doesn’t have to come to that.”

The PNCR held a press conference yesterday where its recently appointed General Secretary Geeta Chandan-Edmond informed that they would be going into the meeting shortly after and she could not commit to saying that she was confident Norton would be chosen Leader of the Opposition. She said the party would engage all stakeholders on the issue.

She said meetings between the PNCR and smaller parties within the APNU are also scheduled.

As Representative of the List, Granger is responsible for both naming and recalling APNU+AFC MPs though political observers say his role is mainly ceremonial and it is the leadership of APNU+AFC that should make that decision.

No one said anything yesterday on engaging Granger to extract Norton’s name from the list and removing someone from parliament to pave way for the PNCR Leader’s entry, the source said.

Following Joseph Harmon’s resignation on Wednesday as Opposition Leader, the APNU+AFC Members of Parliament (MPs) asked Speaker of the National Assembly Manzoor Nadir for more time to deliberate on the appointment of a new Leader of the Opposition.

“The Chief Whip of the APNU+AFC has said that they will indicate to me at a later time their availability for me to convene a meeting for the election of a new Opposition Leader,” the Speaker informed at the beginning of Wednesday’s sitting, where the 2022 National Budget was presented.

Harmon’s resignation came after growing calls for him to demit office and to make way for the recently-elected PNCR Leader Norton.

Harmon had been defeated last December in the contest for the post of PNCR Leader but despite this he had clung to the post of Leader of the Opposition. The PNCR – the major component of APNU – had met and said that Norton should become the new Leader of the Opposition.

AFC+AFC Parliamentarians account for 31 of the 32 seats the opposition has in the National Assembly. Nine of those are from the AFC. A simple majority, or seventeen persons, is needed to select a Leader of the Opposition.

Liberty and Justice Party parliamentarian Lenox Shuman, the sole other opposition parliamentarian, has said he will abstain from the vote on a new Leader of the Opposition as he does not want to be drawn into another party’s internal issues and does not see anyone he would nominate among the APNU+AFC representatives. He said that he will be “drinking water and minding my business.”

“It is my understanding that there are some internal political issues in the APNU+AFC in their ideas of leadership and I think it best not to get engaged in their issues. I am also cautious to not give legitimacy nor credence to their unparliamentarily conduct in this House,” he had told this newspaper when contacted.

“Further, I have not seen the kind of leadership present in their coalition that is deserving of my endorsement,” he added.

The AFC, a source said, will only abstain if Norton isn’t assigned to Parlia-ment and has said that it does not want the coalition to be in the House without a Leader of the Opposition for too long.

“We do not subscribe to anyone acting in the capacity really and so much so for too long because that is not what we have agreed when we went into this coalition,” the source said.