Opposition coalition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) says it will be moving to increase its media presence over the next few weeks to complement its current “ground work” in spreading its message of establishing a government of national unity.
“I believe that a lot of the selling of this group is taking place on the ground,” APNU member Lance Carberry said on Monday during a press briefing. “A lot of our work is taking place on the ground… every week we have teams that are going out into the communities because there is where we have to speak directly to people and we’re doing that,” he said, adding that the public will be seeing a lot more “media type presentations” shortly. “Obviously our campaign, in the media, will be stepped up and you will be seeing more and more of the media type presentations,” he said.
Recently, the partnership engaged with members of civil society and Carberry described this as being “very instructive”. He said that people are interested in the concept of governance that the partnership is advocating. “The reality is that people are observing and hearing what it is the APNU stands for and what a government of national unity will be all about,” he said.
Questioned about the coalition’s attempts to attract more members, Carberry said that APNU is still willing to accommodate interested groups. “The door is open and the door continues to be open for any organization;” whether it’s a civic organization or a political party that agrees to or subscribes to that statement of principles to join the partnership. No new group has joined the partnership within the past three weeks, Carberry disclosed.
Meanwhile, APNU is still deliberating over its leadership team which was expected to be announced since the party’s official launch on July 15. Carberry, on Monday, said that the leadership team will be announced some time before nomination day. Nomination Day is when the various parties hoping to compete in the national and regional elections submit their lists of candidates.
“If you have a partnership as diverse as ours, obviously you have to go through the process of reaching agreement through negotiation as to how the list will be composed,” Carberry said, adding that this is the process that is taking place right now. According to him, the leadership team will be balanced along gender and ethnic lines. “What we will be presenting to the Guyanese people is a team that they can feel comfortable supporting,” Carberry said.
