THERE are concerns in some quarters that the governing APNU+AFC coalition is in trouble on account of breaches of the Cummingsburg Accord, the written agreement between the two entities. Much has been made of the fact that contrary to what is enshrined in the Accord, the President chairs the Cabinet. There have also been whispers of other breaches, such as the failure by the APNU to honour the forty percent principle in some instances and the non-delegation to the Prime Minister of control over domestic affairs.
Former PPP member, Ralph Ramkarran, was most outspoken on this issue. He suggested that the AFC was being shafted by its senior partner’s “power play” and accused the AFC of being “subservient.”
Mr Ramkarran’s observations are based on the fact that Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and other AFC leaders have dismissed the President’s chairing of the Cabinet instead of the Prime Minister, as a relatively unimportant development.
Mr Ramkarran’s charges against the two political partners may be too harsh. His charge of APNU’s power play echoes the traditional PPP critique of the PNC, the largest partner in the APNU. He seems to underestimate the larger politics involved. It is not unusual for the letter of pre-election political pacts to be altered by post-election imperatives.
Clearly the AFC, or at least Mr Nagamootoo, has decided that where there is a clash of the agreement and the Constitution, the Constitution should prevail. The AFC would also be mindful of the fact that, as a junior partner, it does, at the level of the Cabinet, control a majority of Government operation.—Infrastructure, Agriculture, Public Security, Public Media and Business. The big question for the partners in the coalition is whether they would allow relatively small disagreements to undermine their ability to govern the country.
While Mr Ramkarran and others have correctly pointed out that provision is made for the President to delegate some of his functions, the AFC may be thinking of the political implications were it to pursue this issue in the public domain. The AFC would have gone into the Coalition knowing that Partnership politics is a delicate undertaking, especially in a country such as Guyana, where political suspicions among our political elites run deep.
For us, the issue is whether the spirit of the Cummingsburg Accord has been violated. We do not believe that this is the case. Mr Ramkarran and other critics have not made that case. We, therefore, urge the partners to ensure that the spirit of the Accord is respected and that where the letter is amended in the face of real-politics, this must not be done at the expense of that. In this regard, the Mediation Committee set up by the partners must be vigilant.
Guyana is at a delicate place. After a bitter election campaign, in which the ethnic foundation of our country was severely tested, and in the face of Venezuela’s challenge to our territorial integrity, the country can ill afford a public fight between its ruling partners.