AFC clinging to PNC for credibility ahead of 2025 Elections – VP

The Alliance For Change (AFC) and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) are back in the spotlight, rekindling talks of a coalition, which according to People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo seems less strategic and more desperate.
Reports had emerged on Tuesday that the People’s National Congress (PNC)-led APNU and the AFC had reached an accord for further discussions towards coalescing.
AFC Leader Nigel Hughes admitted that his party’s accord with APNU was on life support, as the smaller party remained wary of past mistakes and the fact that a suitable mechanism must be employed to choose between him and his APNU counterpart, Aubrey Norton, to decide who would be the presidential candidate at this year’s General and Regional Elections.
During his weekly press conference on Thursday, Jagdeo did not mince words when he labelled the AFC’s overtures to the PNC as a bid for survival.
Speaking at Freedom House, Jagdeo characterised both Opposition entities as political relics, suggesting that the AFC’s manoeuvring was an attempt to maintain a veneer of relevance in the face of declining influence.
“If this doesn’t tell the people of this country about the comic nature of the characters that we’re dealing with, I think it’s tragic, but in a way it’s also comic. The two serious or seemingly serious political parties that were partners for such a long time, moments after they signed an agreement, they would say that it’s on life support. But the fact of the matter is that these two parties are on life support themselves, especially the AFC.
“I think this is an attempt to cling on to the PNC to ensure that they maintain some modicum of credibility at the next polls, because you cannot deny, as Norton said, that the PNC has more support in this country than the AFC has ever had,” VP Jagdeo said.
Jagdeo further weighed in on this power struggle, suggesting that the AFC’s selection of Hughes as party leader was part of a calculated plan to stake a claim for the presidential candidacy.
“Their plan was, this was like months ago, when they shafted Sherod Duncan and put Nigel Hughes as the lead of the AFC and even then, they had a plot. This was what they were discussing clearly. They were saying to Ramjattan and the others were saying, we will do the polls, conduct the polls and show that Norton is very unpopular and then we will secure the presidential candidate’s position in the coalition for Nigel Hughes,” he said.
On this point, the General Secretary expressed confidence the PPP/Civic would be re-elected at the 2025 polls, stating “from the PPP’s perspective, we don’t care too much who their presidential candidate is because they’re going to lose the elections in any case. But it’s very interesting to us to see how AFC is trying to strong-arm its way and to put pressure on Norton to back down from that position.”

Life support
During a press conference on Tuesday evening, Hughes admitted that there was indeed an agreement and that the content of this accord includes an agreement for the two parties to hold talks on whether to contest the upcoming General and Regional Elections as a coalition or independently – a decision they have agreed will be made by March 31.
While Hughes was reluctant to expound in much detail on what was necessary to revive the agreement from its current life support status, he did make reference to his and Norton’s contrasting leadership styles.
After the news broke of this accord, Guyana Times had reached out to a senior official in the PNC Reform (PNCR), who had confirmed that the two parties have been in discussions and that representatives did meet. The source had indicated that in case the two parties do join forces to contest the upcoming elections, they will be insistent on Norton leading the coalition slate as its consensus presidential candidate.
Following his election as leader, Norton had said that the PNC was considering contesting the 2025 General and Regional Elections independently and while he had indicated that he would be willing to step aside as the party’s presidential candidate for someone who may have more electability, he had made it clear that any new presidential candidate must be someone from within the PNC.
It was announced a few days ago that Hughes had been designated as the Presidential Candidate of the AFC, after the party concluded the first meeting of its National Executive Committee (NEC) for the year.
APNU, whose largest member is the PNC, had coalesced with the AFC in 2015 for the elections that year. The two parties had also jointly contested the 2020 elections. However, the AFC formally broke its coalition with APNU back in December 2022.
The revised Cummingsburg Accord, a political agreement between the two organisations, had provided for this separation. At the time, former AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan had indicated that the two political organisations would do their political work separately, but would work in Parliament jointly. (G1)