IT is official—the APNU and the AFC would be contesting the elections together. Only last week the vultures were licking their lips in anticipation of the demise of the coalition. They were spinning all kinds of tales in pursuit of the end game—the destruction of the coalition.
This publication was moved to alert the coalition leaders to the plot that was afoot. We had no doubt about the outcome, but we could smell the prowlers from afar. The last thing the PPP and their surrogates want to do is to run against a united coalition of six parties including the formidable PNCR, a vibrant AFC and an active WPA. Those three political entities cover the essential bases of the Guyanese electorate. They bring their varying individual strengths, but it is their jointness that scares the political daylight out of the PPP. It is for that reason that we have witnessed the inevitable attacks on the credibility of the PNCR and the attempts to demonise and jettison the images of the AFC and the WPA.
As we have editorialised time and time again, coalitions are not easy to construct and manage. We, therefore, are not surprised that the parties have locked horns on some key elements of their relationship. This is to be expected in a coalition, which contrary to wicked propaganda is not a cohesive party. The AFC is not joining the PNCR and the PNCR is not absorbing the WPA and the other parties in the APNU. These are all independent parties with differing political outlooks which have patriotically decided to partner in a quest to better Guyana.

The nasty propaganda of equating the coalition with the PNCR is a form of deceit that attempts to pass as analysis. Of course, the PNCR is the country’s second oldest political party with a proven track record of electoral strength. In that sense it is and must be the senior partner in the coalition. But the very fact that that party is in a coalition is itself a negation of the politics of division and hegemony. From 2002, when the then PNCR leader Desmond Hoyte announced that power sharing is an idea whose time has come, to the present, the PNCR has been consistent in demonstrating that it has turned its face against “Winner-takes-all politics.” That is a simple fact that cannot be denied.

After the death of Hoyte, his successor Robert Corbin put tremendous effort into realising Hoyte’s dreams. It was he who challenged the WPA and the PNCR to move beyond their historical difference to give birth to the APNU in 2011. And President Granger took it one step further by enlarging the partnership with the birth of the coalition with the AFC in 2015. But it took tremendous courage on the part of the WPA and the AFC to enter into partnership with the PNCR. It is perhaps the most significant political act in Guyana’s post-colonial history.

In so doing, they may have temporarily lost favour with some supporters, but clearly, they have taken Guyana to a higher plane. That is what has the detractors of the coalition in such turmoil. Guyana has tasted what a government of national unity could look like and wants more of it. And why not? We have endured the frustrations of one-party governance for six decades and more and should not want to return to it. This is where the PPP is on the wrong side of history and the coalition parties are leading Guyana towards the future.
So, onward we go to March 2020 and beyond, knowing that the country has a clear choice between the sordid past and a hopeful future that was envisaged by our fore parents as they fought to throw off the shackles of bondage. The coalition is a step out of the ghettoization of our politics, economics and society and a sure movement towards the real democratisation of governance; we should have it no other way. Congratulations are in order for the APNU and AFC leaders for mustering the foresight to transcend their partisan differences. Now get to work and iron out the rest of the accord. As we urged last week, the Cummingsburg Accord is bigger than the parties. It is a worthy example to our Caribbean family. Guyana and the Region would be better because of it.