FORMER junior minister under the APNU+AFC coalition administration, Jaipaul Sharma, has recently joined the Alliance For Change (AFC) amidst defections to the party’s former coalition partner, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU).
Sharma, during the AFC’s press conference on Friday, said that he was heartened to be given the opportunity to be a candidate on the party’s list of candidates and their national top-up list.
Sharma, under the former coalition administration, served as junior Finance Minister from 2015 until he was moved to serve as junior Minister of Public Infrastructure in 2019.
He was a member of his father, CN Sharma’s Justice For All Party (JFAP), which had joined APNU to contest the 2015 general and regional elections.
However, in 2020, Sharma left the JFAP and joined the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) as he was on the party’s list of national top-up candidates, according to the list the party had submitted at that time.
Sharma’s joining of the AFC comes as several members of the party crossed over to the PNC/APNU, including Sherod Duncan, Deonarine Ramsaroop, and Juretha Fernandes, who has since been announced as the APNU’s prime ministerial candidate.
This came after talks between the AFC and APNU in relation to coalescing ahead of the elections had failed due to both parties being unable to come to an agreement.
While these coalition talks failed, AFC leader, Nigel Hughes on Friday told the news conference that his party is still in talks with ‘like-minded’ persons and parties ahead of the election to possibly form a joinder list.
“We certainly are in active discussions with other parties to explore joinder lists,” Hughes stated, noting that one of the parties that they are in talks with is the Assembly for Liberty and Prosperity (ALP) and that discussions thus far have been ‘positive.’