MINISTER Raphael Trotman announced this week that the partners in the coalition government would soon be holding a high-profile meeting to address their differences, which spilled into the open over the last few weeks.This must be welcome news for Government supporters, who obviously would have been taken by surprise at the public exchanges between the two factions of the coalition. Despite President Granger’s assurances that there was no major division in the Government, one could not help concluding that there was need for a frank dialogue among the partners away from the public glare.

The strength of any coalition government is its ability to reach consensus on core issues that relate to governance. The enthusiasm displayed by Government supporters last year and beyond showed the extent to which the coming into being of the Coalition has generated optimism in the country. Many political observers and analysts have opined that the idea and reality of the coalition were pivotal to realizing the change of guard.

We must, however, be reminded that the road to the coalition was not without it challenges. The APNU had to overcome its sense of seniority and size to accommodate the demands of the smaller and newer AFC. The AFC, for its part, had to navigate its way around its own seemingly dogmatic stance of non-alignment with the two big parties. The party also had to placate its support base, which for historical reasons was not enamored of the PNC. In the end, it is to their credit that the parties were able to muster the strength and foresight to overcome the challenges and put in place what some have referred to as a Coalition of Hope.

The idea of a Unity Government had always been touted as a possible means of healing our political wounds and transforming our plurality into a common outlook and destiny. While this Government does not fit into the classic power-sharing model, it is the closest Guyana has come to that ideal.

It is not our first genuine coalition government; the last one was the PNC-UF coalition of 1964-68, which had brought together two ideologically different partners. Perhaps the short and tumultuous experience of that government may have been partly responsible for the hesitancy over the decades.

One of the significant differences between that previous coalition and this one is the fact that the current one brings together a broader coalition. Apart from the PNC and the AFC, there is the WPA, which today does not enjoy the same kind of mass support as it did three decades ago, but remains an important voice in the country’s political discourses. There is also the group of ex-soldiers whom some have argued represent an independent force in the coalition. The breadth of the coalition may appear at first sight to be a weakness, but in the final analysis it may be a positive thing, as some factions many serve as a buffer between the larger forces.
Despite the recent exchanges, the coalition seems to be working relatively well; the parties have stayed together for a year. The chemistry between the major leaders does not reveal hostility. Those are always good signs for a coalition. We wish the coalition well in its upcoming retreat. We are happy that its members have heard the call for a dialogue outside of the Cabinet. As we move into the second year, we hope that lessons are learned from first-year mistakes. And most importantly, we recommend that that forum becomes a permanent feature of the coalition.