After months of negotiations, the Alliance For Change (AFC) yesterday confirmed that its revised governance coalition accord with A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) will see it being allocated 10 parliamentary seats as opposed to the 12 it currently holds.
“The Alliance For Change wishes to confirm reports that consensus has been reached on the Cummingsburg Accord between APNU and the AFC… Full details of the agreement will be provided after the formal signing of the Accord,” party leader Khemraj Ramjattan announced while reading from a prepared statement at the party’s weekly press conference yesterday.
The party leader said that the revamped accord is currently being prepared and the parties will be signing the agreement in the coming days.
“The AFC remains committed to inclusive governance and to the end of winner-takes-all politics in Guyana. With the approach of first oil, no Guyanese must be left out, or feel left out, of the prosperity that will follow,” the AFC leader added, while underscoring that as a coalition partner, it will bring value to the next government and a reassurance that all Guyanese will benefit from the country’s natural wealth.
The deal preserves the historic February 14th, 2015 Cummingsburg Accord that led to APNU+AFC defeating the PPP/C government at that year’s general elections. It also makes unlikely that the current coalition will be expanded and new groups and personalities introduced as had been speculated in some quarters.
Confirmation of Ramjattan as the prime ministerial candidate will also likely signal the departure from top-level politics of current Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, who is an AFC elder. Ramjattan and Nagamootoo had engaged in a bitter battle in the AFC for the prime ministerial nomination. Even after Ramjattan clinched this position at an AFC forum, there had been suggestions that President David Granger and APNU might insist that Nagamootoo be the prime ministerial candidate again for 2020.
The new agreement will be a 30:70 partnership and it was agreed that the AFC will designate the Prime Ministerial Candidate, the party leader said. The current Cummingsburg Accord is a 40:60 arrangement.
“The agreement has that APNU will designate the Presidential candidate and AFC will designate its Prime Ministerial candidate. At this point in time, I went through the process and I am literally the designated person for the prime ministerial post,” Ramjattan pointed out.
The revised accord is also expected to say that Ramjattan will not accede to the presidency were the position to become vacant. Were the coalition to get back into office, Ramjattan will not likely perform the functions of President when Granger is away. Hardliners in the PNCR – the key component in APNU – have been ada-mant that Ramjattan not accede to the Presidency. This position was shaped by the defection to the opposition of the former AFC MP Charrandass Persaud in the December 21, 2018 motion of no confidence.
The PM post had been one of several areas of contention in the negotiations, with the AFC at one point declaring that negotiations had stalled due to APNU’s failure to accept Ramjattan as the coalition’s PM candidate.
The new agreement will also see the AFC having control of four ministries: the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Public Telecommunica-tions and Ministry of Natural Resources.
Ramjattan yesterday said that the Natural Resources Ministry replaces the Ministry of Agriculture, which the party held following the 2015 elections.
Questioned on whether he was satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations, Ramjattan said while the agreement is viewed as a “come down….We are happy… I want a coalition government. I appreciate that an accord is reached. I don’t feel dejected I wanted an accord [because] I feel we can win together.”
He noted when questioned further that the new partnership agreement does not mean his party is weakened.
Not bullied
“I was not bullied neither was I bullying. I was negotiating and whatever was realised, [it was realised that] it would be better to deal,” the party leader added.
The agreement between the coalition partners was struck on Thursday afternoon after a high-level meeting between the two sides.
At this point it is unclear which party in the APNU will be benefiting from the 10 percent allocation sliced from the AFC, if they return to government.
In August, the two partners indicated that they would revise the Accord and stated that the process should take approximately four weeks. The process instead dragged on for nearly three times that period of time
Documents on the proposed terms were exchanged on August 27th but by September, APNU insiders were declaring that the AFC could not receive the same terms, while the AFC maintained that the party was in a strong position to ask for the same or even better terms
“It is unrealistic, even to a political novice, that the AFC could get the same terms as the last accord. Quite frankly, I believe that they will have to be prepared to give up a number of their current ministerial positions in exchange for that prime minister post that they so desperately are pushing,” an APNU source close to the process had told Stabroek News.
At the same time one AFC source said “We are going into the discussions in good faith, regardless of what you hear. We in the AFC still believe that we can get the same terms as the last accord. Many persons say that we don’t have bargaining power because of our performance at the LGE [local government elections], but the LGE and the general elections are not the same. Is APNU willing to risk our numbers and go it alone? Look at the margin at the last elections and tell me if APNU can win alone?”
AFC Vice Chairman Catherine Hughes had argued 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 LGEs, which suffered from low voter turnout.
Critics have said that the AFC’s “third force” role has been severely eroded in government.
