By Mark DaCosta- The joint statement released on 29 September 2026 by We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) reveals that a meeting held on 24 August 2026 between Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed and APNU Chairman Aubrey Norton produced no concrete outcomes on the substantive constitutional disputes dividing the two main opposition forces.
Instead, the factions merely agreed in principle to establish a framework for future engagement, leaving critical questions about representation on the Guyana Elections Commission, the Local Government Commission, and the deadlock in Region 10 entirely unresolved.
The encounter, which took place at Brandsville Suites, brought together senior parliamentarians from both camps. Mr Mohamed arrived with MPs Odessa Primus, Tabitha Sarabo-Halley, Natasha Singh, Duarte Hetsberger, and Vishnu Panday, whilst Mr Norton was accompanied by PNCR General Secretary Sherwin Benjamin, MPs David Hinds, Ganesh Mahipaul, Coretta McDonald, and Dexter Todd, along with Ronald Daniels and Shaneika Haynes.
“The genesis of the meeting was the matters in letters being traded between the parties,” the statement noted, pointing to a trail of correspondence that had sharpened tensions over the composition of key constitutional bodies.
For months, the opposition landscape in our country has been fractured along predictable lines. WIN, having secured sixteen seats in the National Assembly to become the principal opposition, has insisted that the three GECOM commissioners aligned with APNU — Vincent Alexander, Charles Corbin, and Desmond Trotman — ought to step aside in favour of nominees reflecting the current parliamentary arithmetic.
APNU, which holds twelve seats, has flatly rejected this demand, arguing that no vacancy exists under the Constitution. Simultaneously, WIN’s decision to nominate its own supporters and one from the Forward Guyana Movement to the Local Government Commission, whilst excluding APNU’s choices, had drawn fierce criticism from Mr Norton, who warned that such manoeuvres were rendering the opposition incapable of confronting the ruling administration.
The Region 10 impasse added further fuel to the fire. WIN won control of the regional council in the 2025 elections, yet APNU, PPP/C, and FGM councillors combined to elect APNU’s Dominic Blair as chairman, leaving the council in a protracted stalemate. These were precisely the matters that Guyanese citizens expected the two leaders to tackle head-on.
Yet the hour-long session yielded little more than a preliminary understanding. “The meeting was cordial and provided an opportunity for both sides to exchange views on developing general and specific guidelines to govern the engagement between the parties,” the statement read. Both sides pledged to consult their respective memberships before appointing three-member teams to draft terms of reference for future talks.
“The parties committed that, in the case of WIN, they will hold consultations with their leadership/membership before they decide whether they would agree to name a three-member team to work along with a three-member team from APNU to develop the general and specific guidelines to govern their engagement with APNU, and, in APNU’s case, it will consult with other parties in its coalition to select a three-member team.”
Strikingly, the very issues that had provoked the meeting were barely addressed. “No final decisions were taken on the substantive matters discussed at the meeting,” the statement conceded. For a nation watching its opposition splinter over institutional control, the outcome offers scant reassurance.
