APNU is not a Political Party
DEAR EDITOR,
An article in Kaieteur News on Wednesday, October 16 (Private housing developers given preference over poor Guyanese – APNU) reflects a confusion that seems to have become standard in the Guyanese media. Perhaps for the first time in the two and a half year of its existence, a reporter in the print media came close to correctly describing the APNU. He/she referred to the APNU as “Parliament’s largest opposition faction.”
While technically speaking the APNU is not a faction, at least the reporter did not commit the standard error of calling it a “party.” But just as I was thinking that somebody is finally moving to correct this error, I noticed the article’s sub-head—”Party Wants Inquiry into Housing Ministry.”
The APNU is not a Political Party; it is a loose coalition of parties with each party maintaining its separate identity. The parliamentary APNU includes five parties—National Front Alliance (NFA), Guyana Action Party (GAP), Justice For All Party (JFAP), Working People’s Alliance (WPA) and the People’s National Congress (PNC).
Maybe the confusion stems from the fact that the APNU is a pre-election coalition as opposed to the more traditional post-election coalitions. Whether it results from honest ignorance or sloppiness it should be corrected. Newspapers and other media entities are forms of mass communications and go into the archives as documents of historical record. Even if the reporters make the error, the editors should be much more vigilant.
David Hinds