The Alliance for Change (AFC), in its most recent statement, has indicated that it will not be participating in the upcoming Local Government Elections slated for March 13, 2023.

This did not come as a surprise to Guyanese. For quite some time, the party has been struggling to maintain its membership. Many who once felt, mistakenly, that the party would bring a new and fresh face to the politics of the country were disappointed after the Party openly identified itself with the PNC and became the junior partner in the AFC+APNU coalition.

And this after AFC, Leader Khemraj Ramjattan, emphatically declared prior to the 2015 elections that the party would be reduced politically to “dead meat” should it enter into any coalition with the PNC. “Under my dead body”, Mr. Ramjattan is reported to have said.

As it turned out, the AFC not only entered into a coalition with the APNU of which the PNC is the dominant partner, but it also became a significant side-kick parroting the false and preposterous allegations of the APNU that the coalition was cheated out of office in the March 2020 General and Regional elections, and again that the voters list is bloated and illegitimate.

The purported reason for the decision not to contest the elections is that the current list is “bloated” and “illegitimate.” The real reason, however, is that the AFC is afraid to face the electorate after having failed miserably to make any significant impact on the electorate. It barely managed to scrape home about four per cent of the votes in the previous local government polls and did not win any of the contested NDCs.

The fact is that the AFC, over the past years, has been punching way above its political weight. The only thing it has in common with the PNC is its desire to see the removal of the PPP/C from office, for which it was handsomely “regarded” by the PNC in the aftermath of the disputed May 2015 elections by obtaining 40 per cent of Cabinet posts based on an agreement reached under the Cummingsburg Agreement.

The AFC is no longer in any position to, as it were, call the shots. By staying out of the upcoming elections, it is hoping to salvage whatever remaining pride exists while at the same time cloaking its dwindling support base under the guise of a “faulty” voters list.

And as if such hypocrisy is not transparent enough, it has even agreed to lend its support to a “post
ponement” of the overdue elections until such time that a new list is prepared, as it alleged was the case during the pre-October 1992 elections.

This analogy represents not only an act of dishonesty, but also a distortion of the situation that obtained at the time when the PNC had total control of the electoral machinery including the Elections Commission. The PPP had then called for a slew of electoral reforms which included the counting of votes at the place and an independent Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission.

The Carter Center played a key role in brokering the agreements reached, which eventually led to the first democratic elections after nearly three decades of PNC dictatorial rule. It would be recalled that former President, Desmond Hoyte, described the counting of votes at the place of poll as a “logistical nightmare” and it was only after much arm-twisting by President Carter that he eventually relented.

The AFC, like the PNC, is on a fishing expedition, seeking to find red-herrings and scapegoats to justify their dwindling support base and their anticipated poor performance at the upcoming elections. The PNC is still to confirm its participation in the elections as it continues to peddle its false narrative of being cheated out of office and the need for a “clean” voters list.

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) meanwhile is pressing ahead with preparations for the elections and ensuring that the playing field is level. It would seem that nothing that the Commission is doing is good enough for the APNU+AFC coalition as it continues to hide behind the fig-leaf of a “bloated” and “illegitimate” voters list.