AFC mum as another deadline missed to meet APNU

– as larger partner calls smaller party’s bluff

Despite its threats to walk away from the coalition if a deal was not worked out, the Alliance For Change (AFC) has gone silent after once again been unable to bring A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) to the negotiating table.

The AFC itself had said recently that Monday would be the final meeting between AFC and APNU. But instead of the smaller party getting a chance to meet its larger partner, APNU postponed the meeting to hold an internal meeting of its own.
At that internal meeting, representatives from all the parties that make up APNU – the Guyana Action Party (GAP), the Justice For All Party (JFAP), the National Front Alliance (NFA), the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) and the Working Peoples Alliance (WPA), met to discuss their ‘partnership’ with AFC.
“The partners received a brief from the APNU negotiation team examining the Cummingsburg Accord. Following the brief, the partners examined several proposals and agreed on a post-election formula for the allocation of seats and recommended an approach for the continuation of negotiations with the AFC in accordance with the core principles already agreed,” APNU announced after the meeting.
“The partners further agreed and recommended that the Constitution of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana will guide all future discussions. APNU remains committed to ending ‘winner-take-all’ politics in Guyana and to contesting the 2020 elections as a coalition.”
Last week, AFC had made known that if final talks with APNU fail, then the minority party in the governing coalition will be moving ahead with its March 2020 elections campaign on its own.
The two parties are currently revising the Cummingsburg Accord – the deal they signed to contest the 2015 General and Regional Elections, which they eventually won. After weeks of contentious negotiations, the APNU and AFC were expected to wrap up these discussions at a final meeting between the leaders on Monday.
“In the light of the tremendous progress made in completing the revised Cummingsburg Accord and the significant impact that the Accord is likely to have on the outcome of the upcoming General and Regional Elections, the AFC has agreed to a final meeting with APNU on Monday November 18, 2019, at which a single outstanding matter is to be resolved… and that has to do with a formula for the allocation of parliamentary positions, ministerial positions and RDC seats,” AFC executive Dominic Gaskin had stated.
The 2015 Accord had catered for the APNU to get 60 per cent while the AFC gets 40 per cent of the allotments in the three categories. Currently, the AFC has the Ministries of Agriculture, Business (and Tourism), Natural Resources, Public Infrastructure, and Public Telecommunication, as well as the prime ministerial post.
Whatever formula is agreed upon by the two leaders will determine the divisional proportion of the three categories for next year’s polls. However, Gaskin had expressed a belief that the coalition should keep the “winning formula” used for the 2015 elections.
“We are always flexible [and] we’ve been negotiating in good faith, looking for an outcome that is acceptable to both parties…and we have a fair idea of what is fair to the AFC,” the party executive stated.
But even as the AFC was confident that Monday’s meeting would have been fruitful, the party had declared that it will be moving ahead without its coalition partner if those final talks were further delayed or failed.
Critical members of the AFC, including AFC General Secretary David Patterson and executive Cathy Hughes, could not be reached for a comment. GUYANA TIMES