The Alliance For Change (AFC) has signalled that it would not be renewing its coalition agreement with A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and would be embarking on a process of “rebuilding” and seeking out “new coalitions”.
The party’s leadership hinted at the moves at a press conference held yesterday.
The Cummingsburg Accord – the agreement originally signed in 2015 and revised in 2019 – would come to an end in December of this year. The parties would then have to broker new terms under the agreement or decide to part ways.
On June 11, the AFC held its seventh National Conference with over 200 delegates and the party decided that it is in favour of remaining in the partnership with the APNU. However, the party said that the “conference demanded in the meantime that the AFC secure a firm agreement and structure for it to have a greater influence on policy positions and political actions within the alliance, while maintaining its independence, rebranding and regaining its identity.”
During a recent appearance on an online programme, AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan spoke about the party’s decision on the Accord. He said that after the expiration of the agreement, the AFC would be maintaining its “independence”.
Yesterday, Stabroek News asked Ramjattan about the statement but received an answer from the party’s Chairperson Cathy Hughes.
She said that the AFC has always been a proponent of coalition politics and will always look at ways to achieve that. She added that the matter of the Cummingsburg Accord is always discussed at every National Conference and meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC).
Hughes explained that the Cummingsburg Accord and its revisions were defined and designed for a partnership that would have been in government.
“At our national conference, we recognised that the Cummingsburg Accord is actually going to expire at the end of this year and the decision that our national conference and the 200 delegate representing our various groups made, was that we would not consider leaving the coalition prior to the expiration of that agreement. So we have an agreement that we’re a member of the coalition in place until the end of this year and our party agreed that we are going to stay until the end of the year when it expires.
“…as I’ve said, coalition politics is very important to us [and] we accept that there have been challenges in the relationship that we’ve had with APNU, we accept that, in most correlations, the smaller party quite often is subject to the perception of them being no longer strong, no longer dynamic, no longer being viable partner, according to some. We don’t agree with that although it might be the perception,” Hughes said.
The APNU has been sidelining the AFC throughout their agreement, prompting the latter to threaten to leave several times.
Under the original Cummingsburg Agreement, signed February 14, 2015, AFC was given the prime ministerial position and 12 seats in Parliament when the coalition won the government at that year’s general elections. It was seen as the key factor in the defeat of the PPP/C at the elections. However, political analysts say that the hardliners within APNU – particularly its main component – the PNCR felt that AFC had gotten disproportionately high benefits from the Accord and that this had to be reeled in.
The AFC had also been unhappy with the allocation of seats to it at the historic 2016 local government elections and had pressed at various points for an adjustment in this area. Matters came to a head at the 2018 local government elections when APNU threw down the gauntlet and had the AFC contest the polls on its own in an apparent bid to have it show its real worth.
The revised document, which was signed on December 24. 2019, was never released to the public. The non-release of the full revised agreement raised questions about whether the coalition is really committed to transparency. Under the revised agreement AFC was given the Prime Ministerial slot, a 30:70 split of all positions of authority, including seats in Parliament; and the distribution of ministries after consultation between the parties, as opposed to naming, upfront, which ministry will be headed by a member of a specific party.
That was seen as a decrease in the benefits the party received in 2015.
Yesterday, Hughes told the media that the party is now looking “inwards” to determine the way forward.
“This is the time that we want to rebuild our party. Our focus is on rebuilding our groups, getting back onto the ground and so although there’s no actual definitive idea as to what will happen post-December 31, we do accept that there’s a very strong level of support for us to spend the next two years rebuilding [and] looking internally so that by 2024, we will have regained our strength. And that is when we figure we will be looking at how new coalitions could be formed, what it could look like,” she related.
Partnering with the PPP
Ramjattan when asked whether the AFC would consider partnering with the governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP), said that it is “frankly a nonstarter.”
“As an Alliance For Change independent party, we are going to support them [PPP] if they will ensure that they do far more structured distribution of the oil monies so that every Guyanese can equally gain. I am telling you we will support that…but tying bundle with them at a political level for coalition politics purposes, I doubt it. I doubt it very much and it will be a nonstarter,” Ramjattan said.
Meanwhile, Hughes added that the AFC currently has very little in common with the PPP so any kind of engagement would be “very remote.”
However, she said that the party would be reaching out to some of the smaller parties that emerged during the 2020 elections as well as having more discussions with civil society groups and trade unions.
Meeting with APNU
Hughes said that the AFC last met with Leader of the APNU Aubrey Norton, who is also Leader of the Opposition, about five weeks ago where they had cordial discussions on matters of interest. She added that a follow-up meeting was agreed upon but could not have been scheduled owing to Norton’s travel schedule.
The AFC was represented at that meeting by Ramjattan, Hughes and former General Secretary David Patterson while Norton, Volda Lawrence and Geeta Chandan-Edmond were on the APNU team.
Ramjattan later told reporters that a meeting between the two parties is slated for Monday at a time yet to be determined. He said that while he is certain that the agenda would be “meaningful” he would not go into details at this time.
