THE STAIN THAT CANNOT BE ERASED
First, it was the breaches of the Cummingsburg Accord. The people were expecting that the Prime Minister would have been responsible for domestic affairs when the new government was appointed.
This did not happen. The President is effectively wielding political power over all Ministers, including the Prime Minister.
The Office of the Prime Minister was degutted of real power and was cocooned within the Ministry of the Presidency which is headed, not by the Prime Minister, but by a Minister of State.
There was no major fallout from this decision. The supporters of APNU could not be bothered that the agreement which created the coalition was being honoured in the breach. The AFC supporters buried their bruised pride, licked their wounds and pretended everything was honky dory with the coalition.
Everything is not fine with the coalition. Ambitions are running wild. People are jumping ship. Daggers are being pulled in the dark. There is backstabbing and backbiting. The coalition felt comfortable enough to hand the ministers a handsome salary increase of 50%. The workers in the meanwhile were told they had to wait for their increase.
The people reacted negatively to the increase. They were appalled. They were outraged. The government handled the situation badly and added fuel to an already fiery situation when an official said he had nothing to apologize. He eventually expressed regrets over that statement but the damage was already done.
The storm passed and the coalition felt complacent. They are taking the people for granted. How else does one explain what has happened recently with the honorific appointment of an adviser on business and a controversial trip to China, the details of which are not yet fully known.
This time the fallout is going to be permanent. . The supporters of the AFC and the APNU are furious about what is happening within the government at the moment. They are furious about the explanations being given. Three of four persons are giving different explanations for the same thing and this is fueling the disappointment of the people in the coalition.
The AFC is trying to pull itself out of the present imbroglio. It recognizes the dangers and it senses that the people are disappointed by what they are reading about honorific appointments and about the recent trip by a Minister to China.
The revelations coming out of those two related controversies are going to taint the coalition. That stain is going to remain for a very long time. It will not be erased that easily. It will not be forgotten as the breach of the Cummingsburg Accord and the salary increases were.
The coalition is splitting at the seams. The AFC is trying to distance itself from the honorific appointment of an Adviser on Business to the Minister of State. The AFC has already suffered disintegration of its party with a leading member offering his resignation which has now been converted into a leave of absence. All is not well within the AFC over this matter.
All if not well between the AFC and APNU, with APNU supporters carrying placards critical of the AFC. The AFC is now contending, also, that a dispute settlement mechanism between itself and the APNU has not yet been established.
The Working Peoples Alliance is split down the middle on this issue. It is divided as to its loyalty and obligations to the coalition and its concern that instead of change the coalition is offering mere exchange.
The WPA is also at odds with the government over the handling of the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the death of Walter Rodney, its late co-founder. The coalition has problems. It is being held together by the fact that political power is at stake and this may be enough to prevent a splintering of the coalition.
But no matter what the coalition does, it cannot erase the stain that it is now smeared with. It cannot erase that stain. It will permanently hurt the coalition because the supporters of both the AFC and APNU feel deceived by their parties.
