THE Alliance For Change (AFC) seems obsessed with creating history by scoring political points. Addressing the issue of the coalition talks between the two opposition parties, Vice Chairman Moses Nagamootoo Thursday at the party’s weekly press conference pointed to the ability of the party to engage the larger A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) in coalition talks, and to be the first party to table a no-confidence motion as some of successes of the party that will be recorded in history.

He was at the time responding to a question posed by the media on the coalition talks between the two opposition parties which are taking place behind closed doors. He said that even if the talks do not succeed, the party has already created history through the engagement.
Elaborating on other history making initiatives, he pointed to the no-confidence motion tabled by the party. He said, “The talks have come upon us as a historical imperative …we have never had a multiparty, multiclass, multiethnic coalition in Guyana in a country as diverse as Guyana in which there is ethnic polarization and insecurity – it is a tragedy that we have never had such an alliance or coalition so it is by discharging that moment in history that the AFC would have already gone down in the records as it has gone down in so many other records as being the only party to table a motion of no-confidence on a sitting government and in fact forced the government to buckle under pressure to prorogue the parliament.”
He also acknowledged that the actions of the party have created some instability in the country by stating that the no-confidence motion was an effort to cope with the responsibility of history. He said, “Having placed a sitting government in confusion, this is one more effort of the Alliance For Change to cope with the responsibility of history to initiate dialogue with all sections of society.”
Nagamootoo’s recollection of history, however, is erroneous as it is common knowledge that there were coalition talks between the People’s Progressive Party and the People’s National Congress prior to the death of former president Forbes Burnham.

(By Raymon Cummings)