FORMER People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) Executive, Joseph Harmon said the decision by the Alliance For Change (AFC) and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) to form an alliance is a product of people consumed by bitterness, so much so that “they cannot think straight”.According to Hamilton, it is bewildering that “a party with no constituency” and seven seats in Parliament “would be guaranteed 12 seats in the House” if the alliance, which is yet to be named, “emerges victorious at the May 11 polls”.

Under the pact reached by the two Opposition Parties, it was agreed that there will be a 60/40 allocation in Cabinet positions in favour of APNU.

The AFC in the 2011 General and Regional Elections won 10 percent of the votes, with the APNU obtaining 41 per cent.
The AFC-APNU alliance has contended that based on the support they received in the 2011 elections, if they combined, they will be able to dispose of the incumbent People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) Government.
But Hamilton is contending that there is no guarantee that the results will be the same at the May 11 polls, given the posture of the two Opposition parties during the 10th Parliament.
In addition, he said, persons who traditionally voted for the AFC are those who are tired of the PPP and the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), the dominant party in the APNU coalition.
Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle, the former PNCR Executive said given the coalition, the AFC-APNU alliance is likely to loose a large chunk of voters who prefer a middle ground and have traditionally supported the AFC.
This aside, he said, the AFC should have been more careful in their alliance with the PNCR-dominated APNU, as the leaders of the PNCR see them more as a tool to help them gain power, and less as a collectively effort to remove the PPP/C from office.
CLASS POLITICS
The former PNCR Executive said, too, that though politics from the outside has always been centred mainly on race, in the higher echelon of the PNCR it is about class, and in a coalition where that party dominates, it would be difficult for Moses Nagamootoo to command the respect of the top executives of the alliance.

Nagamootoo, a former PPP Executive, now AFC Vice-Chairman, was named the Prime Ministerial candidate in the recently formalised AFC-APNU coalition of parties.
According to Hamilton, a taste of the class politics of the influential PNCR leaders in APNU should not be strange to Nagamootoo as he was a victim of it during the 10th Parliament.
He pointed out that even though AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan clamoured vociferously for Nagamootoo to be given the Speakership of the National Assembly, the APNU leadership led by Granger paid him no heed.
Instead, he said, they put Ramjattan in a position where he could not have refused their offer during the stalemate over the Speakership, giving him, Raphael Trotman, a founder of the AFC and former Executive of the PNCR.
Hamilton contended that it was unpalatable for Granger and others to accept Nagamootoo, an ordinary countryman who rose to prominence under the PPP for the Speakership, ahead of Trotman, who comes from a better-off and more intellectual background.
He said it is the same revulsion the leaders of the PNCR have for former President Bharrat Jagdeo, whose parents were ordinary members of society and for President Donald Ramotar whose father was a “woodcutter”.
DIVING RIGHT TO RULE
Hamilton, who is now PPP/C Parliamentary Secretary for Health, said the nation should not be fooled, adding that the leaders of the PNCR believe that they have a divine right to rule.
On this point, he stressed that Ramjattan and Nagamootoo in their alliance with APNU to vote the PPP/C out of office are only fooling themselves, as they do not know the real intention of the leaders of APNU.

(By Tajeram Mohabir)