By Mark DaCosta- The A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) presidential hopeful Aubrey Norton took their campaign to Linden on Sunday, telling residents that an APNU administration would safeguard the town’s subsidised electricity and roll out a raft of social and economic initiatives. The rally, held in Wismar outside the former Palm Tree Cinema, drew a large turnout and featured a string of speakers who promised action on education, healthcare, housing and agriculture while issuing sharp warnings about the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government’s plans for the town’s power supply.
Norton framed Linden’s future around the availability of inexpensive energy, arguing that cheap electricity is essential for any effort to diversify the economy beyond bauxite. “We will work assiduously to ensure that there is always cheap electricity in Linden,” he told the crowd, reiterating a central pledge of his campaign.
He accused the ruling administration of signalling the removal of the local subsidy by proposing to connect the town to the national grid, and invoked the presence of Prime Minister Mark Phillips in Linden as proof. “Understand what they’re trying to tell you; is a nice way of saying to you, we’re removing the Subsidy from electricity in Linden. That must not happen. It must not,” Norton said, adopting a combative tone that reached back to the traumatic protests of 2012 when an attempt to alter the tariff sparked unrest in the town.
Norton also took aim at social spending under the government, proposing conditionality for the Because We Care cash transfer. He urged that the cash grant be used to keep children in school, framing the measure as support for parents rather than an allowance for frivolous spending. He attacked the closure of the Charles Roza School of Nursing as emblematic of neglect and pledged that an APNU administration would re-establish and expand nursing education across the country. “We will open a network of nursing schools,” he promised, positioning the move as part of a wider health-sector training drive aimed at staffing new hospitals his opponents have been constructing.
Other APNU voices at the rally broadened the party’s pitch. A former MP pledged measures to protect residents from flooding, while campaigners spoke of plans for a national network of early childhood centres modelled on a facility built between One Mile and Half Mile during APNU’s previous term. Norton told parents that such centres would allow single mothers to work with the reassurance that their children are in a safe, educational environment. He added commitments on vocational training for youth, affordable mortgages, rental assistance and a school transport system intended to ease access to education.
Attorney-at-law Ronald Daniels delivered a strident reprimand of the People’s Progressive Party, invoking the memory of young Linden men killed during past unrest and warning of a more forceful approach to alleged injustices. “Their blood is running in these streets,” Daniels said, accusing the government of heavy-handedness and promising that an APNU government would end such violence.
Professor Dr David Hinds, meanwhile, warned supporters to remain vigilant at the polls, threatening resistance if the election process was tampered with. “If they try to rig this election, there shall be no peace in the valley,” he said, urging a combative readiness among voters.
The event went on despite reports of a power outage, a detail that underscored Norton’s argument about the fragility of local energy provision. Many attendees made the journey from the capital in a motorcade. Estimates of the crowd numbered in the low thousands, with faces from across the community present to hear pledges on training for teachers, trades for young people and support for sustainable farming so that Region 10 can feed itself rather than rely on distant supplies.
The central dispute at the rally — whether Linden’s subsidy will survive a new grid connection — taps into longstanding tensions in the town. Government plans to link Linden to a natural gas-fired plant at Wales, on the West Bank of Demerara, are now projected to come on stream by mid-2026, a technical shift the APNU views as a pretext for tariff harmonisation and subsidy removal. The memory of bloodshed in 2012 remains fresh in local political discourse, a fact Norton and his colleagues used to stiffen resolve among supporters.
Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony responded to claims about the nursing school, saying the institution was not closed and suggesting that Norton’s account was either mistaken or untruthful. Dr Anthony also reiterated his party’s own commitments to expand training for nurses, doctors and pharmacists as part of broader plans to staff the health infrastructure it has developed.
As the campaign advances toward the September 1 General and Regional elections, Linden has once again become a stage for competing narratives: a party promising to defend local subsidies and revive public services, and a government insisting on the integrity of its projects and the need for national integration of infrastructure. For residents of Region 10, the coming months will determine whether those promises translate into policy — or whether the town’s long-standing anxieties about power, services and safety remain unresolved.
