The death of former People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) leader Robert Herman Orlando Corbin has prompted a deeply personal tribute from Parliamentarian Amanza O.R. Walton, who remembers him not only as a former Deputy Prime Minister, Opposition Leader and party leader, but as a family friend and political mentor whose counsel influenced her journey in public life.
Corbin, known affectionately as “RHO”, died on October 4, 2026, at the age of 78, bringing to an end a political career that spanned decades and included senior positions in government, Parliament and the opposition.
Walton’s relationship with Corbin, however, extended beyond politics. She served as a parliamentarian for the A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) in Guyana’s 12th Parliament and now leads the Forward Guyana Movement (FGM), serving as the party’s lone parliamentarian in the 13th Parliament.
In a statement mourning his passing, Walton said her connection to Corbin was rooted in longstanding family ties and developed into a relationship in which she valued his guidance at important moments in her political life.
“I learned with deep sadness of the passing of Robert Herman Orlando Corbin, CCH, fondly called RHO by those who knew and loved him. To the nation he was a former Deputy Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform. To me he was a family friend and a mentor, and it is in that capacity that I wish to remember him today.”
She said the relationship between their families predated her political career, with Corbin’s father having grown up alongside her paternal grandparents.
That history, she said, shaped the manner in which Corbin related to her.
“When he offered his counsel, it carried more than the interest of a senior statesman in a younger politician. It carried the care of someone who had known me since I was a child, and my parents before me.”
Walton recalled that Corbin was not someone who sought to constantly impose himself, but whose advice appeared at what she described as “pivotal junctures” in her political life.
“Mr. Corbin was not a voice I heard from every day. He was a voice that arrived at the pivotal junctures.”
She said his advice was sometimes unsolicited, but that she eventually came to recognise the value of counsel that was offered without being requested.
“He gave of his time and his wisdom freely to someone who had no claim on either, and he asked nothing in return,” she said.
Among Corbin’s qualities, Walton singled out what she regarded as his willingness to relinquish political power when he believed it was in the wider interest of his party and the political movement.
She pointed specifically to 2011, when Corbin declined to seek the presidency and opened the selection of the PNCR’s presidential candidate to a primary process before making way for new leadership.
“That decision was not a retreat. It was leadership in its rarest form, measured not by what a man keeps but by what he is willing to release for the sake of something larger than himself.”
Walton also credited Corbin’s role in advancing coalition politics, particularly his work alongside Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, saying it helped create conditions that contributed to the opposition’s eventual change of government in 2015.
“History will record that the coalition politics he championed alongside Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine, and the room he made for others, helped lay the foundation for the change of government in 2015.”
She said Corbin’s contribution was reflected in developments that occurred even after he had withdrawn from frontline political leadership.
“Much of what he built bore fruit after he had stepped back. I believe he understood that this is exactly how the work of a true builder is meant to look.”
For Walton, Corbin’s death represents the loss of a trusted source of wisdom.
“I shall miss his counsel. I shall miss knowing that somewhere there was a seasoned voice ready with a word of wisdom at the moment it was most needed.”
She extended condolences to Corbin’s wife, Carol, his daughter Fidela and siblings, his brother Charles, and the wider family.
“May he rest in peace,” Walton said
