DESPITE Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), Aubrey Norton, previously stating that there were no regrets about any of the decisions that led to the Alliance for Change (AFC) abandoning the coalition with A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), he is now saying that hopes of a future partnership is an “open question.”

During a press conference on Thursday, Norton stated, as it relates to the upcoming 2025 General and Regional Elections, that the two parties have to meet to find a confluence.

“…The AFC makes its decisions, the PNC/the APNU will make our decision and then we have to meet to find a confluence,” the PNCR Leader noted.

He then went on to say: “The question as to whether we will be in a coalition with the AFC in the next election is an open question… But we can engage to determine [whether] we go forward together or separately. Both tactically and strategically, we have to make that decision.”

Just last week, AFC’s Khemraj Ramjattan attempted to “flex” the party’s muscle by saying Norton cannot make decisions for the AFC.

Specifically, during a press conference, he said Norton has no say in whether the party will be forming a partnership for the upcoming 2025 General and Regional Elections. This is despite accepting Norton’s recent unilateral decision to reshuffle the “shadow” positions of the opposition parliamentarians in the National Assembly.

“It is the AFC’s decision as to whether we contest with APNU as a partner, it is not Aubrey Norton’s decision,” Ramjattan related.

Speaking on the previous move to form a coalition with APNU, the AFC Leader said this happened because of “consent.”

The “Cummingsburg Accord” signed by the APNU and AFC on February 14, 2015, saw the parties uniting in a coalition that saw them winning the 2015 elections, but that seven-year partnership officially ended on December 31, 2022, as was announced by AFC Leader Ramjattan.

“I rather suspect that the partnership will be discussing these matters at the appropriate time… we [AFC] will be making our decision [and] APNU will make its decision but it’s by consent of the AFC as to whether we go into [a] partnership,” Ramjattan said.

In an interview with the Guyana Chronicle last year, Ramjattan had said that the party made the decision in 2022 to leave the coalition.

Norton, in 2023, had maintained that there were no regrets about any of the decisions that led to the AFC abandoning the coalition with APNU.