And then there were two!
The government is preparing to sideline the smaller parties within the APNU. This explains why certain actions are being targeted against personalities within the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) but not against the Alliance for Change (AFC).
The AFC has not been cut down to size. The portfolios of the ministries headed by AFC Ministers have either been downgraded or outsourced to other ministries and agencies. The Ministry of Public Security was degutted of the responsibility for immigration and the registration of deaths and births. The Ministry of Agriculture no longer has responsibility for sugar. The responsibility for the environment and for petroleum has been removed from the Ministry of Natural Resources which is headed by the head of the Alliance for Change.
The PNCR successfully orchestrated the removal of Khemraj Ramjattan as leader of the Alliance. He has been replaced by a PNCR favourite, Mr. Raphael Trotman. The AFC is not complaining about how it is being treated by the coalition. It is not renegotiating the Cummingsburg Accord. It is comfortable with the pact that it presently has with the PNCR.
In the meantime, the PNCR is shedding deadweight out of the APNU. The first target has been the Working People’s Alliance. Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine who is from the WPA, and was removed as Minister of Education and placed to work in the Ministry of the Public Service. This means that he has become a junior Minister since he falls under the Minister of State in the Ministry of the Presidency.
The hammer is about to fall on Dr. Clive Thomas. He is the present Chairman of the beleaguered Guyana Sugar Corporation but he is not likely to be returned as head of the Board of that unit, judging from the names which NICIL has put up for consideration.
The hammer has fallen on Dr. David Hinds as a columnist in the Guyana Chronicle. The WPA activist and co-leader has been unceremoniously dumped from the pages of the state-owned newspaper. One member of the WPA is alleging that it was a leading Minister of the Alliance for Change who called the editor of the Guyana Chronicle to report on Cabinet’s dissatisfaction over the criticisms, which David Hinds and TUC official, Lincoln Lewis, were making in the newspaper.
If that report is correct, it would suggest that the AFC is playing a shrewd political game and may be planning to renegotiate the position of Prime Minister in favour of another candidate for the 2020 elections. It also would mean that the AFC has joined with the PNCR to purge the coalition of the minor parties, which has little or no electoral support.
The APNU consists of the PNCR and the AFC – two major parties – along with smaller parties such as the National Front Alliance, Justice for All Party and the Working People’s Alliance. The problems which the WPA are facing may be part of a plan to dismiss these smaller parties from the coalition so as to end up with only a two party coalition that would allow for the PNCR to have more ministerial seats.
It has long been rumoured that there is dissatisfaction within the PNCR over the fact that it has been forced to give a 10% party, 40% of parliamentary and Cabinet seats. The PNCR’s representation has been further watered down because each of the smaller parties, the WPA, JFA and NFA has each been allocated a Ministry. The PNCR, it is said, is highly displeased with this sort of arrangement, which has reduced its role within the government.
However, that role is still substantive enough for the party to exercise majority control over the government. This dominance has been made even greater by the PNCR having the all-powerful Presidency.
The indications therefore are that the smaller parties are being marginalized and pushed out of the coalition. All indications suggest that this is a calculated strategy. It is too early to say what role the AFC is playing in all of this.
The banishing of the smaller parties from the coalition would leave a coalition with only two members. Not that this would make any difference to its electoral fortunes because the smaller parties have little electoral appeal and were, as Guyanese would say, “only making up numbers.”
