THE APNU/AFC ‘COALITION’ AGONY

ALTHOUGH it may come as a surprise for some supporters of the governing People’s Progressive Party and the main opposition APNU (A Partnership for National Unity), we today openly empathise with the apparent dilemma expressed by APNU’s chairman, David Granger, in relation to reported “coalition” discussions with the minority Alliance For Change (AFC).  Even before its involvement in initiating a “no confidence” motion in Parliament against the PPP-led Government, the AFC’s leadership two-some of Khemraj Ramjattan and Moses Nagamootoo—defectors from the PPP—were sending mixed and confusing signals to APNU on a coalition alliance. Varied media reports, would confirm the scenarios of double-speak and vacillations, at times by both parties.
Indeed, there were occasions when more clarity in responses originated from APNU’s General Secretary, Joseph Harmon, to AFC’s overtures on a possible anti-PPP coalition between the two Opposition parties, in comparison to utterances by Granger, both as People’s National Congress Reform leader and chairman of APNU.
When, however, the AFC’s Ramjattan went  public with ‘talk’ about a coalition of the two being dependent on his party holding the “leadership” position for contesting forthcoming new national elections, Granger knew that he could not possibly take such a situation to the PNCR, and sought clarification.
As far as we recall no such ‘clarifications’ came from the AFC; and by yesterday, the ‘Guyana Times’ was reporting a perplexed Granger as asking “what exactly you (AFC) are proposing…”?
Speaking at a press conference, the PNCR leader and APNU chairman, declared that while APNU’s General Secretary Harmon had already taken steps to engage the AFC in dialogue on the way forward for a likely coalition, “at this point in time, we do not know what the proposal (for a coalition) involves….
We have asked the AFC to give us a proposal so that there is something to talk about,” he said, adding: “I would like to know what the AFC is calling for that has not been provided by the APNU over the last three and a half years…”
The harsh reality, as only recently declared by the PPP’s General Secretary, Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee, is that what these two Opposition parties really share in common is their known common hatred for governance by the PPP, historically, the single biggest mass-based multi-ethnic party of Guyana. In contrast to the other major party, the PNCR, it has NEVER rigged its way to state power.
For now, we await the AFC’s response to Granger’s very direct question to the AFC-raised with an evident sense of frustration—“what exactly you are proposing” as the basis for a coalition….”

extracted from the Guyana Chronicle