GEORGETOWN, GUYANA – Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton is now doing damage control after his coalition partner’s blunt declaration that the sugar industry is “done” triggered backlash and confusion within the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU).
At the party’s campaign launch last Sunday, APNU member Leon Saul, founder of the “Legalize Cannabis Guyana” party, startled attendees with a stark statement: “Sugar done, hemp and cannabis in… When the oil is done, hemp and cannabis will still be growing.”
The remark sparked immediate public concern, given the critical role the sugar industry continues to play in many Guyanese communities. Just a day later, the APNU issued a press statement disavowing Saul’s comments, claiming they were his “personal view” and insisting the coalition has “absolutely no intention of closing down GUYSUCO and abandoning sugar.”
But that’s where things get murky.
When pressed about the contradictions during a press conference on Friday, Norton downplayed the inconsistency and said such differences were normal in coalition politics. “What Leon Saul would have said, we have put out a press statement making it very clear that it was his personal view and not that of the APNU,” Norton said. “The official position from the APNU comes from the leader/chairman of the APNU who happens to be Aubrey Norton.”
However, Norton’s own words on the matter paint a different picture.
In August 2024, during a Globespan 24X7 interview, Norton himself said that an APNU administration would significantly reduce the scale of the sugar industry. “I believe that sugar has to be produced in limited quantities,” he said then, echoing the very sentiment the party now claims to reject.
The contradiction hasn’t gone unnoticed. Critics say the coalition’s message is all over the place, and the damage from Saul’s outburst may already be done, especially among workers in the sugar belt who view GUYSUCO as a lifeline.
Saul, for his part, has made no apologies. As head of a party whose central policy goal is the legalization of cannabis, he has publicly called for the full replacement of sugar with hemp cultivation.
But within APNU, the fallout was swift. While Norton tried to paper over the cracks, the party’s official line is now being walked back, with renewed pledges of support for the sugar industry, despite both the leader’s and his coalition partner’s previous remarks suggesting otherwise.
With the election season heating up, observers say this episode exposes deeper fractures in the coalition, and raises fresh questions about what voters can expect from an APNU-led government when it comes to the future of one of Guyana’s oldest and most symbolic industries.
