Norton Owes His Party a Leadership Review

Dear Editor,

Across the democratic world, a simple rule holds: when a party loses badly, its leader answers for it. Not always by resigning outright, but at minimum by facing the membership in a vote of confidence. Guyana’s APNU/PNC, under Aubrey Norton, is now the striking exception to that rule — and the party is paying for it in defections, instability, and a widening credibility gap heading into 2030.

Ontario offers a clean example. After leading the provincial Liberals to just 14 seats in the February 2025 election — third place, a result she herself called disappointing — Bonnie Crombie didn’t simply carry on. Under her party’s constitution, she faced a mandatory leadership review at the annual general meeting, needing majority delegate support to continue even as a rival faction campaigned openly against her. When that review came in September 2025, Crombie cleared the threshold with 57%^[1] — enough to survive on paper, but well short of the 67% many members felt was needed to lead with real authority. Political commentary was blunt afterward: a thin majority isn’t the same as a mandate. That standard traces back to 1983, when federal Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark won 66.9% in his own leadership review and resigned anyway^[2], arguing that as a lawyer he felt anything short of 80% wasn’t good enough to govern on. By that measure, Crombie’s number was even weaker — and within hours she announced she would step down once a successor was chosen, calling it the right moment for the party to move forward. Assistant Professor Éric Grenier and other Canadian political scientists have noted that a post-defeat leadership review is now treated as a standard, expected mechanism in Canadian parties — not an exceptional one.

This isn’t a peculiarly Canadian habit. Caribbean parties build the same accountability valve into their own constitutions, and use it even when the outcome is uncomfortable for the sitting leader.

In T&T, the United National Congress holds internal leadership elections on a fixed cycle regardless of the party’s electoral fortunes. Persad-Bissessar faced that process even after her People’s Partnership government was swept from the Tobago House of Assembly in 2013 and lost the 2015 and 2020 general elections — the party did not simply shield her from a vote because the results were bad. And the process has real teeth: in 2022, former minister Fuad Khan directly challenged Persad-Bissessar for the post of political leader^[3], forcing an actual contest rather than a coronation. Whatever one thinks of the outcome, the UNC’s members were given the chance to decide whether their leader should continue.

Jamaica’s two major parties show the same instinct. On the JLP side, Andrew Holness’s leadership has repeatedly been put to internal tests after disappointing results — including a parliamentary caucus convened specifically to examine his stewardship after setbacks, and a direct leadership challenge from Audley Shaw that forced him to actively campaign to keep his own job^[4]. On the PNP side, after a string of election defeats, then-leader Peter Phillips faced a formal internal challenge from Peter Bunting, who came close enough that the result was treated as a serious rebuke rather than a formality. In both parties, a bad electoral result did not simply get absorbed and forgotten — it triggered a real internal reckoning, decided by the membership, not by the leader’s own say-so.

Compare that record to the APNU/PNC. Norton’s coalition won a mere 12 seats — fewer than Crombie’s Liberals — and was overtaken by a newly formed party, WIN. Yet unlike Crombie in Ontario, unlike Persad-Bissessar’s party in Trinidad, unlike the JLP and PNP in Jamaica, Norton hasn’t subjected himself to any review at all. The membership has never been given the opportunity to vote on whether they wish him to continue as leader.

The result has been a haemorrhage. Geeta Chandan resigned. She is now a PPP/C Parliamentarian. Dawn Hastings migrated to WIN, and thereafter held a key parliamentary seat for that Movement. The post of General Secretary — a pivotal role in any political party — has known no stability whatsoever since Norton became leader. This is what happens when a party’s constitution allows a leader to insulate himself from the very accountability that his Caribbean and Canadian counterparts accept as routine.

If the PNC — as the dominant component of the APNU coalition — remains headed by Norton without ever having faced a leadership review, why would the coalition expect to fare any better in 2030? I offer this as constructive criticism of a flawed internal process for selecting party leadership, not as personal attack. WIN’s General Secretary will quickly discover Norton’s limitations in unity talks, just as the AFC did before: even an experienced negotiator like Hughes couldn’t make headway with Norton’s style of leadership, those talks collapsed, and the AFC had to run alone receiving 0 for its troubles. APNU got 12 seats for its trouble. Primus is “no little gyal in politics” after sitting in Parliament for a year now. She ‘s young, she’s vibrant, she’s a go-getter, and she is a no-nonsense parliamentarian unafraid to raise her voice.

The lesson from Ontario, from Trinidad, and from Jamaica is the same: a party that lets its members judge its leader after a defeat gives itself the chance to rebuild. A party that shields its leader from that judgment risks losing its members instead — one resignation, one defection, one haemorrhage at a time. The records, as always, speak for themselves.

References

1. Bonnie Crombie to resign as Ontario Liberal Party leader — toronto.citynews.ca ↩
2. Outspoken critics of Conservative leader Joe Clark applauded his... — www.upi.com ↩
3. Fuad Khan challenges Kamla for UNC leadership — newsday.co.tt ↩
4. Will Andrew Holness stamp his leadership on the JLP? - Jamaica Observer — www.jamaicaobserver.com ↩