Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall has weighed in on the ongoing controversy surrounding efforts by the Alliance For Change (AFC) and the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) to form a coalition once again, to contest this year’s upcoming elections.
The two parties, which previously coalesced for the 2015 and 2020 elections, had set a March 31 deadline to finalise an agreement. However, as the deadline passed on Monday, disagreements persisted.
For a coalition with APNU, the AFC is demanding a 40-60 power sharing agreement, and that its leader Nigel Hughes be the presidential candidate. However, the AFC indicated that should it not get the presidential candidate position, its party should hold the Leader of the List position; this position controls parliamentary appointments and removal.
APNU leader Aubrey Norton has already made it clear that his party carries “the burden of the work” and will not let anyone “ride on our backs”.
He had stated, “We ain’t going to let nobody take their eyes pass we. I want to make this commitment to you that this party will not allow anybody to ride on our backs. We are prepared to engage and be reasonable but we are not prepared to bend over backwards.”
During his programme “Issues in the News” on Tuesday, Nandlall mocked the demands put forward by the AFC.
“Electoral politics is about one’s ability to get votes. Tell me honestly from everything you have seen, you think the AFC can attract 40% of the votes from any part of this electorate?” he questioned.
Nandlall also criticised the opposition parties for focusing their discussions on power sharing rather than on policies to address the needs of the populace.
“The people’s interest is being put on hold. They’re not talking about that. You would have expected that these two parties will sit down and the first item on the agenda is what will be their development plan for the Guyanese people, how they will eradicate poverty that they’re speaking about so much, how they will address all the issues that they keep criticizing the government in respect too…how they will get investments and reduce crime and unemployment and all the things they are promising,” the Attorney General said.
The AFC and APNU first joined forces in 2015 under the Cummingsburg Accord, revised in 2019 with fewer concessions for the AFC before expiring in December 2022. The coalition won the 2015 elections but lost power after a no-confidence motion in 2018.
Originally, the AFC held a 40 per cent stake in the coalition, which was reduced to 30 per cent in the 2019 revision. The party’s declining influence was reflected in its poor performance in the 2018 local Government elections and its perceived role in the no-confidence motion’s passage. Following their 2020 election loss, the APNU/AFC alliance officially ended in December 2022.
