APNU Leader, Aubrey Norton said he has decided against sending the party’s youngest aspirants into Guyana’s National Assembly, arguing they must first build experience at the regional level before facing what he described as a difficult parliamentary environment.
“I would have liked to put some of the young ones that came in, but we opted to put them at the regional level and involve them in other areas, so that they can get the experience,” Norton told journalist Svetlana Marshall on her show “Sources”.
Eden Corbin was among several younger APNU political aspirants who showed promise on the campaign trail. Some social media commentators noted Corbin’s absence from the list of Parliamentarians and said it is a testament to APNU’s lack of confidence in young people.
“Being a parliamentarian in this kind of environment is not going to be easy, and the person will have to have some strength to move forward,” the APNU Leader said.
Norton himself will not take up a parliamentary seat, instead remaining party leader while APNU is represented by a mix of seasoned members and new faces. The decision comes after APNU suffered a heavy defeat in the 2025 General Election, losing more than 60% of the votes it secured in 2020 and losing its status as main opposition to the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party led by Azruddin Mohamed.
The APNU leader acknowledged the party’s poor showing but insisted that the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) did not perform as strongly as official results suggest. “Unlike what people believe, the PPP didn’t do as well as they claim to have done. There was widespread rejection of the PPP. I think the rigging machinery would have helped them to get where they are,” Norton said.
The APNU has not provided clear evidence of vote rigging by the PPP, but suggested that the government’s $100,000 cash grant programme was used to seduce voters.
