–if coalition is pursued

IN a declaration reflective of the self-interest which the party’s leadership is being accused of prioritising, the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC-R) has maintained that if it is to pursue a coalition with the Alliance For Change (AFC), the presidential candidate must come from Congress Place.
Party General Secretary Sherwin Benjamin, in an invited comment to the Guyana Chronicle on Friday, cited a motion that was moved at its biennial congress to allow whomever emerges as the party’s leader to be the presidential candidate for the upcoming Regional and General Elections.

Aubrey Norton was elected as the party’s leader in July, despite battling a mountain of allegations regarding numerous infractions before the party’s internal elections were held.
Benjamin, while skirting around questions on whether the party is capable of contesting the general polls on its own, stated that the PNC-R believes there is room for coalition politics, and in due time will approach its former coalition partner, the AFC.
“We are working with our coalition partners between the APNU, and we will reach out to the AFC when that time arrives to chart the way forward,” Benjamin told this publication.
Both the PNC-R and the AFC have publicly expressed optimism that they could gain solid footing if they are to contest the polls independently.
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 then AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan.
In an interview with the Guyana Chronicle last year, Ramjattan said that the party made the decision in 2022 to leave the coalition.
PNC-R’s Norton, in 2023, had maintained, however, that there were no regrets about any of the decisions that led to the AFC abandoning the coalition with APNU.