MR. ERIC Phillips of ACDA held an important position in the APNU+AFC administration of 2015 to 2020. Currently, Mr. Phillips is advocating shared governance. WPA stalwart, Dr. Maurice Odle has recently published his autobiography. His role in the APNU+AFC regime was even larger than Phillips’.
Dr. Odle, in his memoir, sees inclusive governance as a requirement for a futuristic Guyana. Both Phillips and Odle are cynical about what they see as the winner-take-all system in Guyana. A few days ago, Dr. Desmond Thomas, head of an organisation named Election Reform Group wrote a letter in the press in which he sees the need for the constitutional recognition of an inclusive governance model.

These three gentlemen belong to a long list of Guyanese personalities who either were part of the APNU+AFC administration or in their political perspectives supported either at the subliminal or overt level, the APNU+AFC government.
This school of inclusive governance advocates does not seem to understand that they are doing an enormous disservice to Guyana’s historiography, the intellectual climate of the country and the intellectual needs of young Guyanese by avoiding theorisation on why the leadership of all the political parties in the total coalition of APNU and AFC did not pursue inclusive governance.

As you turn the pages of Odle’s autobiography, your curiosity expands prodigiously when you see chapter entitled, “Coalition Blues: Guyana, 2015-2020.” Given his colossal academic credentials and his long political experience, you believe at last that there would be available to the intellectual climate, a profound deliberation on why the APNU+AFC did not pursue power-sharing confabulations with the PPP after 2015.
You thought that chapter in Odle’s memoir would be the defining moment because no one connected with the APNU+AFC regime wants to touch the subject. Clive Thomas in his weekly column in the Stabroek News, completely blanks out from his mind any thoughts on the APNU+AFC administration of which he represented the WPA in the coalition government.

David Hinds has a weekly podcast in which he demands power-sharing but there hasn’t been a word from Hinds as to why there wasn’t power-sharing from 2015 to2020.
David Granger has a television programme named “The Public Interest.” The title gets you angry because you want to believe that Granger hasn’t a clue what are the contents of the public interest. Granger has not mentioned even one word about the policies of his government in his series of programmes.
Why did the APNU+AFC not pursue power-sharing in a country where the wining party won an election by less than one per cent. If there was any logical argument for the pursuing of shared governance in this country it was in 2015 when it can be reasonably argued the PPP neither the PNC won the

general election. In fact, using the standard of crude reality, the PPP won the 2015 election because in Region Eight, the PPP lost by a single ballot and GECOM refused to order a recount.
Why was there no board room conference between the PPP and PNC after 2015 to decide on inclusivity? Was there a single, powerful person who demanded that the subject be made non-existent? Or was it a school of leaders who were on the same wave-length about not talking to the PPP?
The failure of the PNC, AFC and WPA to pursue shared governance after 2015 is such a priceless topic for the inclusion into Guyana’s political history that it becomes a permanent insult to this nation if it is not explained.

It becomes morally obligatory on the part of those like Odle and Phillips to at least offer a few notes as to why it never happened because they are now putting it on the agenda.
St. Aquinas, the official philosopher of the Holy Roman Empire noted that there is an explanation for every action in life. There is an explanation as to why the APNU+AFC government did not walk the path of shared governance after 2015.
Granger, Odle, Thomas, Phillips, Raphael Trotman, Nigel Hughes, Khemraj Ramjattan operated deep inside the corridors of power (Hughes held no government position but was second in charge of the AFC when the AFC was in power), and have knowledge as to the actor or the cabal who resisted the pursuit of shared governance after 2015.

The Guyanese people are not asking for denunciations and bad-mouthing among former APNU+AFC bigwigs. The nation simply wants some explanation as to why such a golden opportunity for the PNC, the PPP and the WPA to talk about an all-party government was not made use of. Please gentlemen, you owe it to the nation to put pen to paper.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.