Three days after officials declared that governing coalition partner Alliance for Change (AFC) would be contesting the March 2020 elections alone if the terms of a revised Cummingsburg Accord were not concluded by yesterday, the party is now saying it will address the matter at the end of the week.
At the AFC headquarters last night, General Secretary David Patterson declined to answer any questions put to him on the negotiations.
Asked if there had been a meeting with A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Patterson said “no comment.”
Asked what actions his party would take next, Patterson said “no comment”.
Asked if the party would be issuing a statement, Patterson again said “no comment.”
He, however, indicated that a press conference is scheduled for later this week.
Meanwhile, the Executive Committee of APNU issued a statement in which it explained that a meeting of all the parties that make up the Partnership was held yesterday. At the meeting, representatives of the Guyana Action Party (GAP), the Justice For All Party (JFAP), the National Front Alliance (NFA), the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) and the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), with President David Granger sitting as chair, were briefed by APNU’s negotiating team.
According to the statement, the partners examined several proposals and agreed on a post-election formula for the allocation of seats.
They also recommended an approach for the continuation of negotiations with the AFC in accordance with the core principles already agreed.
“The Partners further agreed and recommended that the Constitution of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana will guide all future discussions,” the statement added before concluding that APNU remains committed to ending “winner-take-all” politics in Guyana and to contesting the 2020 elections as a coalition.
It is not clear which of the coalition partners cancelled yesterday’s meeting but it is the AFC which had established November 18th as the final deadline.
“This deadline can no longer be extended,” the junior coalition partner had said in a statement on Friday.
APNU’s chief negotiator Volda Lawrence told a press conference held at Congress Place on the same day that, “We believe that we will able to conclude all negotiations and all our agenda items by the end of this year as we are working towards.”
AFC officials told a press conference at its Kitty Headquarters last Friday that the party would launch its elections campaign on November 23rd with or without APNU.
“AFC is ready. We desire a partnership with the APNU. It is the preferred way to go in these elections but we are battle ready and with or without our partners, we are ready to go and all of our plans are in place,” Deputy General Secretary Leonard Craig said.
Craig further explained that the outstanding issue is “a formula for the awarding of ministerial positions and seats on the Regional Democratic Councils.”
Notably, the party, which had previously halted negotiations over APNU’s reluctance to accept AFC leader Khemraj Ramjattan as the PM candidate, would neither confirm nor deny that this aspect of the accord has been finalised.
The AFC, which had declared the negotiations stalled last month, in a statement, explained that discussions between the parties resumed after October 24th, with several productive high-level meetings between the leaders of the AFC and APNU, as well as between the two negotiating teams.
President Granger and Ramjattan had met following this suspension of talks and apparently reached a compromise.
Sources had told this newspaper that part of that compromise was a commitment from the AFC that its prime ministerial candidate would not rise to the presidency.
