GUYANA | New PNCR leader Slams Jagdeo, wants a debate highlighting corruption

GEORGETOWN,  Guyana, December 26, 2021 - The new president of the People's National Congress Reform, Aubrey Norton has challenged Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo to a public debate where the people can determine the extent of their involvement in corrupt activities as well as their qualifications to lead the country on the basis of academics.

In a statement on Boxing Day, Norton, who said he was responding to Jagdeo’s Christmas day  analysis of the recent elections in the PNCR,  referred to Jagdeo as a “demon” who had no moral right to speak about democracy.

“I believe that there should be civility in politics and therefore I did not want to respond to the rantings of a Demon amidst the festivities, so I delayed my response to today. I hope all Guyanese had a Merry Christmas notwithstanding the increase cost of living that resulted from PPPC incompetence,” Norton said.

Norton, who won leadership of the PNCR in a landslide election last Saturday, has described  Bharrat Jagdeo as a “demon”, an “evil spirit,” and quotes the dictionary defining a demon as “a source or agent of evil, harm, distress or ruin”. 

The following is the text of  Norton’s statement:

At the outset it should be established that Jagdeo has no moral right to speak about democracy since he never practiced it and his rise to power in the PPPC was a result of Mrs. Janet Jagan hand picking him ahead of other candidates rather than by elections.

It is hypocrisy for a hand-picked sponsored politician who had little or no political experience to talk about who has and did not have experience. Jagdeo is just a hypocrite.

While not  indicating any direct link between Jagdeo and a number of alleged extrajudicial killings which took place during his terms in the office of president, He called the Vice President Evil.

The wanton waste of taxpayer’s money on the Skeldon Sugar Factory, among other failed projects, points to his ability to ruin anything he touches, and his entire time spent as President resulted in stress to the Guyanese people. This demonic spirit that has been unleashed on our people will be confronted and tamed.

Clearly, the intention of his comments is to shift focus away from his desire to remove Article 22 from the Natural Resource Fund Act so that he and his greedy elite band in the PPPC can create the conditions for the PPP kleptocracy to steal the Nation’s money that comes from the sale of oil. We oppose the PPP creating the conditions to be able to raid the Treasury. We demand that you withdraw the amendments to the Natural Resource Fund Act.

Interestingly the PPP has targeted Mr. Winston Jordan, Former Minister of Finance, and has trumped up charges against him. Winston Jordan committed no crime unless you consider his creation of a Natural Resource Fund with checks and balances to ensure a wider participation of the Guyanese people in determining how the funds from the oil sector will be spent and preventing persons of Jagdeo’s ilk from squandering the Nation’s wealth a crime. It is not.

Mr. Jordan should be credited for taking action to protect the Nation’s patrimony. It is time for Jagdeo to shed his evil ways and begin to serve the people of Guyana rather than himself and the rich and corrupt elite that have transformed the PPP into a Party of hustlers.

To achieve his nefarious plans Jagdeo is compelled to play the race card. I know he worries because it is becoming clear to every ethnic group that he is about self-aggrandizement and not about the interest of our people. We will hold him accountable. The era of do as you like, when you like and how you like is coming to an end. The  PNCR will serve all Guyanese.

Jagdeo has no moral right to comment on elections in the PNCR. He has highjacked the PPP and treats all and sundry in it as if it is his fiefdom, including President Irfan Ali who has been installed twice, first by King of the Party, Jagdeo and then secondly by those forces who ignored fraudulent votes and imposed him on the people of Guyana.

The Demon would do well to learn from the democratic process that resulted in the election of a new Central Executive in the PNCR in an open and transparent way. The PNCR has shown the world that we are a democratic Party and best suited to govern Guyana.

Had Jagdeo not been a dictator the PPP would have had a different Presidential candidate. He chose a puppet so he can have him on a string. He clearly is worried that the PPPC will want to emulate the PNCR and demand free, fair, open and transparent elections and end his domination and control of the PPPC. Let the winds of democracy blow through the windows and doors of Freedom House.

Mr. Jagdeo, notwithstanding his limitation should know that an analysis is “a detailed examination of anything complex to understand its nature or to determine its essential features”. What the demon did was not an analysis. It is a compendium of wild statements by a corrupt, incompetent and divisive person that seeks to shift the focus away from the PPPC’s poor governance record and its actions aimed at controlling and dominating every aspect of life in Guyana.

An analysis must be based on the facts. First, he used 3000 delegates as the basis of his so-called analysis. Since he is not a person who listens he did not hear that Mr. Alexander in response to the Press said that there could be as much as 3000 delegates and not that Congress will have 3000 delegates.

At the end of an open and transparent accreditation process the Congress did not have 2000 delegates and therefore Jagdeo”s conclusion that only 36 percent of the delegates voted is incorrect even though self-serving.

Secondly, Jagdeo’s penchant for creating his own facts led him to erroneously conclude that even though voting was virtual many delegates did not vote. In his attempt to create his own narrative he failed to recognize that there was in person voting in those elections except for the North American Region that voted virtually. Again, he fabricates and got it all wrong.

But I pity Jagdeo. He must have known it was in person voting since the picture of a PNCR delegate voting in person appeared on social media. The Monday after the elections, his racist and vindictive regime refused to pay her for work done in Albouystown and did not renew her contract. Clear evidence of ethnic and political discrimination and that he knows it was in person voting.

I note the VP suggested that I am no academic. I would let our people decide that and the students I taught at the various educational institutions in Guyana. But since when Jagdeo has interest in academia? Had he such an interest his choice for President would have been an academic rather than one whose academic qualifications are being questioned.

That apart, he and I can provide the opportunity for our people to judge by consenting to an old invitation for us to debate. In the process we must debate the source of his wealth and allow me to put his salary against his wealth and let the public determine if such wealth was obtained without corrupt activities. It hurts Jagdeo that he has nothing on me, so he is seeking to fabricate. That is what demons do.

Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform