Talks between governing coalition partners APNU and the AFC for a 2020 elections pact have stalled over the former’s apparent unwillingness to accept the latter’s nominee for the post of prime minister, posing the most serious threat yet to the Cummingsburg Accord which led to the removal of the PPP/C in the 2015 polls.
As a consequence, the Alliance For Change (AFC) who have refused to compromise on its nomination of its Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan will spend its National Executive Committee meeting on November 2nd deciding “on its mode of participation in the upcoming General and Regional Elections.”
Speaking at press conference yesterday, AFC Executive Dominic Gaskin said that the naming of the Presidential and PM candidates by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and AFC respectively remains a “fundamental and non-negotiable tenet” of the coalition.
“It is the basis on which we will enter into any coalition” he stressed, adding that the party will also not consider changing its PM candidate.
“We have already made a decision. We don’t accept that any other entity or other party should tell us or dictate to us who we should have as our Prime Ministerial candidate,” he said.
According to Gaskin, the AFC has therefore advised the APNU that it cannot proceed with any further discussions until this matter is resolved.
“The AFC finds it unacceptable that the matter of the Presidential and Prime Ministerial candidates has been repeatedly deferred,” he told reporters. adding that the provision as exists does not “clash with the constitution.”
The AFC had selected Ramjattan, the Minister of Public Security, as its prime ministerial candidate following a bruising internal battle but it was later made clear by APNU that this was not a done deal.
In July, PNCR Chairperson Volda Lawrence told a press conference that while “the party welcomes the fact that the AFC party was able to have their conference and elect their new candidate for the prime ministerial position. The party or the coalition and the AFC have not reached that stage in terms of discussions on prime ministerial candidate.”
The PNCR is the major force in APNU.
Lawrence’s statement had attracted pushback from AFC General Secretary, David Patterson who noted that the Accord stated very clearly that “Alliance For Change shall nominate the prime ministerial candidate and … that the APNU shall nominate the presidential candidate” but last month President David Granger reiterated Lawrence’s position.
“This is one of the issues that would have to be discussed… I cannot say now who I’ll be running with,” Granger said, adding that that the main concern is that the agreement “abide by the Constitution of Guyana.”
“That is the principal foundation of any agreement. Nothing in the accord should collide with the Constitution,” Granger stressed.
Yesterday Gaskin dismissed any contention that the provision contravenes the constitution.
“We are not asking for the Cummings-burg Accord to supersede the Constitution. We are saying that the AFC should name the…Candidate. After the elections, the President appoints the Prime Minister as per the Constitution. There is no clash or collision with the Constitution in the Cummingsburg Accord, stipulating that the AFC will name the Prime Ministerial Candidate…We did it before there were no complaints,” he stressed.
Gaskin further pointed out that all parties in Guyana’s history have identified a PM candidate before elections and no one has suggested that it was a breach of the constitution.
The AFC’s February 14, 2015 accord with APNU was seen as the key factor in the defeat of the PPP/C at the May 2015 general elections. The key features of the Accord were that the AFC would have the prime ministerial position in the government and 12 seats in Parliament.
However there have been grumblings from hardliners within APNU – particularly its main component, the PNCR – that the AFC had gotten disproportionately high benefits from the Accord and that this had to be reeled in.
Meanwhile, the AFC had also been unhappy with its allocation of seats at the historic 2016 Local Government Elections (LGE) and had pressed at various points for an adjustment in this area.
APNU threw down the gauntlet and had the AFC contest the November 2018 LGEs on its own in an apparent bid to have it show its real worth ahead of negotiations for a 2020 accord.
The poor showing of the AFC in those elections and its stance on a range of matters have been seen as diminishing its national standing and APNU hardliners have calculated that the AFC will bring no electoral advantage to the coalition in 2020 and therefore the coalition should look elsewhere for a PM candidate.
It has been suggested that Minister of State Dawn Hastings-Williams is among the candidates being considered.
On August 12 this year, APNU and the AFC agreed that the Cummingsburg Accord should be revised and that this process could be completed within four weeks. The process has so far dragged on for twice that amount of time before stalling on Wednesday.
The Cummingsburg Accord is a sunset agreement with a lifespan of a minimum of three years and a maximum of five years.
AFC Vice Chairman Cathy Hughes yesterday maintained that while many have declared the party dead they are confident that the people of Guyana who have supported the AFC in the past remain committed to their principles and the national development of Guyana.
“The Alliance for Change is a party of principle committed to the fundamental transformation of Guyanese society which includes healing and reconciliation, an end to racial voting, winner takes all politics and constitutional reform which we have preached since 2006,” she declared, adding that none of these issues were the subjects of the contest in the local government elections, which suffered from low voter turnout.
“In the absence of a discussion on these major issues the AFC does not take the results of local government elections as indicative of where the party stands or its standing on major issues of national development,” Hughes argued while Chairman Raphael Trotman posited that the 2018 results showed the population is not satisfied in seeing the coalition members “separate and apart.”
“It is not in best interest of either coalition partner to be separate,” he stressed adding that “none who aspire to lead Guyana over the next decade should be gambling with the people’s future. We have to do what is in the national interest. I don’t see a better alternative to the coalition, compromise has to be found on both sides. We have to do what is best in the national interest.”
