APNU SHOULD GIVE IN TO THE DEMANDS OF THE AFC
December 20, 2014, By KNews, Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source - Kaieteur News
It is time for the opposition parties to stop calling on Donald Ramotar to do this and to do that. It’s time for the opposition parties to stop demanding things from the government.
Nothing is going to change under the Ramotar administration. The opposition parties should cease all their demands and protests. It is a waste of time. The government is not listening.
The government is also not changing course. It is stuck with the discredited agenda of the Jagdeo presidency and quite absurdly, continues to plug for the building of a hydroelectric project at Amaila even though that entire project now needs to be renegotiated and re-examined given the collapse of global oil prices.
The government is appearing very foolish when instead of using the opportunity of the precipitous decline in oil prices to seek a new deal on this project; it is going ahead with the same blueprint. This demonstrates a robotic approach to government of the country.
The opposition parties have made some suggestions but they are wasting their time. The government is not interested in shared governance; it is not interested in political cooperation and it certainly is not prepared to consider alternatives to the raft of discredited projects initiated under the Jagdeo administration.
The only way that change is going to come about is through the ballot box. The only way that things are going to change is if the government is voted out of power at the next elections. So the opposition parties should concentrate their energies on winning the next election.
This is going to be a monumental task but no one predicted that the PPP would be a minority government. So therefore, with the right campaign, the right alliance and the right leadership heading an opposition alliance, the PPP stands a chance- a slim chance- of being defeated.
The AFC has a good strategy. It know that if it goes into the election as a junior member of an opposition alliance, that the party will lose a great many votes because the disenfranchised supporters of the PPP will once again become insecure fearing a PNCR presidency.
Look, there are many supporters of the PPP who are disgusted with the government. They are bewildered by what is taking place under the Donald Ramotar administration. But the least thing these supporters want is for the PNCR to take over the Presidency. This drives real fear in supporters of the PPP because they remember clearly what the PNC reduced this country to. They remember State terrorism under the PNC and how bribery and corruption became institutionalized under the PNC. They remember, also, the starvation and humiliation faced by people who were being denied basic necessities.
As much, therefore, there are many PPP supporters who wish to see the back of the PPP, they do not want to see APNU or the PNCR hold the presidency which is the most powerful position in the country.
It is for this reason that APNU has to seriously consider the AFC’s demand to lead a pro-democracy. If the AFC is at the head of that alliance, then the next President will come from the AFC and the disgruntled PPP supporters will be more willing to support an opposition alliance headed by the AFC.
Source - http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....-demands-of-the-afc/