FORMER People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) executive member, Joseph Hamilton has accused the A Partnership For National Unity (APNU) of “selling out the store and goods in it” through the coalition deal it struck with junior Opposition partner, the Alliance For Change (AFC).

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, dubbed the ‘Cummingsburg Accord’, it was agreed that there will be a 60/40 allocation in Cabinet positions in favour of APNU. The David Granger-led APNU and the AFC have said that the deal was brokered in the best interest of the people, as they reiterated their goal of removing the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government from office, which they contend is corrupt.

Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle, Mr. Hamilton, the PPP/C Parliamentary Secretary with responsibility for Health, said even though the deal has been agreed, based on his knowledge of the thinking of the PNCR there is a strong likelihood that it will be met with strong reservations.
He described the move by the small party as a “brilliant stroke to prolong its survival,” noting that in the history of local politics, the electorate has never been kind to third parties, and the AFC would have become increasingly aware of this.
In 2006, Hamilton pointed out that the party was able to secure five seats in Parliament following the elections, as many PNCR supporters were upset with the leadership of Robert Corbin. The AFC was therefore able to expand its gains as many PPP supporters in Berbice were deeply disappointed at the way Moses Nagamootoo had departed from the party (PPP).

VOTED IN SYMPATHY
They felt, Hamilton said, that Nagamootoo, a long-time PPP executive member was “pushed out” of the ruling party, and voted in sympathy for the party he joined, the AFC.
But, he contended, like any other situation sympathy like time dissipates, pointing out that there was a similar situation with former PNC Prime Minister Hamilton Green. Green was removed as Prime Minister by then President Desmond Hoyte and expelled from the PNC, but with his followers in the party, he formed the Good and Green Guyana (GGG) party which won the Mayorship of Georgetown when Local Government Elections were last held in 1994.
Today, Hamilton pointed out, the GGG is non-existent, and sympathy for Green has disappeared.
However, he stressed that unlike Green who was able to stick with his supporters for many years, the same cannot be said about Nagamootoo, contending that given his party’s actions in Parliament, his credibility is eroding faster than one could imagine as neither he, nor the AFC has done anything to improve the lot of their supporters.
Worst yet, he said, both AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan and executive Nagamootoo had told their supporters that they would never coalesce with APNU, noting that the recent move by the small party is not only a reversal of their principled position but a major breach of their promise to their supporters.
The former PNCR executive said the AFC leadership would have recognised the damage it has done to itself after the 2011 elections, and would have noted the resurgence of the PNCR through APNU and the PPP recovering support it had lost at the last elections.
On this basis, he said the leaders of the party would have examined its future and realised that its chances of a decent showing at the polls were “very slim.”

HAD NO CHOICE

As such, Hamilton said it had no choice but to join APNU with the hope of establishing a dominant role in the coalition, and try to profit as much as it can from any blunders of the PNCR-dominated coalition by trying to distance itself from them.
This, he said, is one of the primary ways the AFC would be able to survive in the coalition, but warned that the folks in the PNC are not naïve, and naturally and quite understandably, their long-term goal would be to swallow up the AFC and outgrow the alliance.
He said that there is no sign that the PNCR has lost its identity in APNU, and not many who intimately know the party would believe that it is not interested in returning to the political scene on its own.
But he pointed to other issues with the APNU-AFC alliance. He said a vast majority of supporters who threw their support behind the AFC did so as they were tired of the politics of the established PPP/C and the PNCR and want to experience something different.
However, Hamilton said from 2011 to 2014, the AFC failed miserably to present itself as an alternative to the two major parties which have dominated the local political scene for more than five decades.
PARTNERS AGAINST DEVELOPMENT
Instead, he said, the AFC found solace in APNU, and joined with it in voting down projects that would have benefited all Guyanese, including their own supporters.
The combined Opposition, the AFC and APNU, had said that its action was geared at curbing wasteful spending and weeding out corruption, but Hamilton said this is far from the truth, pointing out that it was a well-orchestrated move to punish the Government, even if it means that the people have to suffer.
By doing this, he said that they were hoping to achieve their goal of turning the people against the Government, so that the people will vote them out of office.
On this score, the PPP/C Parliamentary Secretary said too that the claim by Nagamootoo that an AFC-APNU alliance will remove the PPP from office is “far-fetched.”
The AFC-APNU alliance has based their claims on the results of the last General and Regional Elections, when APNU secured 41 percent of the votes and the AFC 10 percent.
According to Hamilton, this situation is hardly likely to reoccur, given the AFC and APNU’s “vindictive actions” in Parliament and the disappearance of a party holding the middle ground.
He said it is unlikely that supporters who choose the middle ground would vote for an APNU-AFC alliance, since it is nothing more than old and once bitter PPP and PNC comrades, who have done little to improve the lives of their supporters, collaborating to get their hands on the reins of power.
On this note, Hamilton said he is confident that with the many persons who had shunned the PPP in 2011 returning to the party, and many of their legitimate issues being addressed, the party is on the path to regaining its status as a majority Government, come May 11.

By Tajeram Mohabir