The Peoples National Congress (PNC), Alliance for Change (AFC) and Working Peoples Alliance (WPA) recently announced that they will be meeting to discuss the establishment of a coalition for the purpose of contesting the upcoming regional and general elections to be held by November this year. Only recently, these parties were part of the coalition, APNU+AFC, (the WPA was part of APNU), which won the elections by one seat in 2015. The APNU+AFC coalition was built around the Cummingsburg Accord which was signed by APNU and AFC on February 14, 2015. Its primary objective was the distribution of ministries and parliamentary seats among the parties in the event that APNU+AFC won the elections. APNU+AFC felt confident at outcome of the elections the time because, with the AFC, it held a one seat majority in the National Assembly over the PPP/C minority Government.In order to be able to form the government the APNU and AFC were forced into the coalition because the constitution did not allow a post-election coalition with a majority of seats to form the government.
Governmental coalitions have never been successful in Guyana, starting with the PNC and the United Force (UF) in 1964. The coalition between the PNC and UF lasted for only four years. Some of the UF’s members were later absorbed by the PNC and it eventually faded as a political force. The PPP established an unusual coalition in 1992, namely, a coalition with Civic members who had aligned themselves with the PPP in the campaign for free and fair elections leading up to 1992. The Civic was not an organized group and the PPP opposed it having a formal structure for fear that it might become a powerful pressure group. After 1997 the Civic group dwindled, lost many of its prominent members and plays no structured role in the PPP today. APNU+AFC was the third and final governmental coalition. After the APNU+AFC lost the elections in 2020, the coalition was brought to an end.
From 2011 up to the present time parties have held majorities of one. The PPP/C probably believes that at the upcoming elections it will win a majority of more than one due to the additional benefits flowing to the population as a result of the oil economy. Whatever the outcome of the elections one fundamental, unchanging, fact of political life is that ethnic voting patterns are entrenched. Since the ethnic groups and their electoral allies are almost equally balanced, whatever may be the outcome of particular elections, the overall trend will remain the same and will continue with very slim majorities, even if occasionally interrupted by larger ones. Even though the PPP/C will not seriously consider any kind of coalition at the present time, the idea of coalitions will force itself on the agenda in the future. In 2011 the PPP was prepared to lose power rather than to consider a coalition with either APNU or AFC or both. This salutary experience would be a lesson for the future.
The APNU+AFC won 47 percent of the votes at the last elections. With APNU traditionally obtaining about 40 percent of the votes, AFC has the potential to make a coalition competitive. Whether it will do so to the extent that it will take a coalition over 50 percent remains to be seen. The election of anew leader for the AFC, Nigel Hughes, is an advantage but he faces two obstacles. He represents the persons who have been charged with various offences involving electoral malpractices during the 2020 elections, including Clairmont Mingo and Keith Lowenfield. It will be impossible, therefore, for Mr. Hughes to own up to AFC’s role in the 2020 elections, probably the most traumatic political event since 1992, which took Guyana back to the bad old days of rigged elections. The second obstacle is that the Guyana Government is able to spend huge sums derived from oil to spend on social and other benefits.
Probably the most important issue would be the leadership of the coalition. Aubrey Norton, the Leader of the Opposition and of APNU, has declared that as the largest, single group, it is entitled to the leadership of any coalition. This appears to be non-negotiable for Mr. Norton. Even if he is prepared to stand aside, he is not going to concede leadership to Mr. Hughes of the much smaller AFC; and there is no one on the horizon who appears to have the necessary credentials that would attract consideration as a consensus candidate.
Towards the end of the APNU+AFC’s term of office, strains had clearly begun to develop between the coalition partners. They contested the 2018 local government elections separately. It is believed that the parties could not agree on the distribution of seats. There were already grumbles emanating from APNU that the AFC had got too many ministerial posts in the government under the Cummingsburg Accord. After the 2020 elections and the APNU+AFC became the Opposition, strains appeared to have continued and the parties did not renew the CummingsburgAccord. They have since gone their separate ways but continue to collaborate closely. In all of these circumstances, it does not appear that there will be an opposition coalition for the elections.