AFC to fight for 60 per cent of seats secured after polls

Coalition LGE talks

…or break away from coalition, ride solo

By Michael Younge

As the Alliance for Change (AFC) is, over the next two days, readying itself for the next round of talks with A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) about contesting the upcoming Local Government polls under a united list, there are within the AFC those who are pressuring the Executive to demand that the AFC be given 60 percent of the total seats secured after the elections.
This would mean that that party would have to field 60 percent of the candidates to contest key areas across various municipalities, districts and town councils, while the APNU and its partners would have to settle for fielding just 40 percent of the candidates thereof.
“We are in the process of submitting a proposal to the negotiation team headed by Minister David Patterson, to have him seriously consider making this demand as a means of testing the sincerity and commitment of the APNU to the coalition. We didn’t get what we deserved after the last elections…but this time we are not playing games”, a senior AFC Executive told the Guyana Times on Thursday morning during an interview.
The Executive, who is not yet ready to be named publicly, said there is strong

support for the position that will be articulated in the proposal, which will be shared with other party Executives in a strategic manner.
“We want them to know that we are not ploys, and that we can work together to keep the PPP out and far away from securing an outright victory, as they managed to do in key areas at the last LGE polls. It is also important to us that we send a strong signal to the PPP and their propagandists that we are not dead meat, as Khemraj had said”, this Executive member maintained.
The AFC team is officially headed by Minister Patterson, while the APNU team is headed by its General Secretary, Joseph Harmon. To avoid tension during the negotiations, both sides have agreed to keep under wraps the discussions and types of proposals which are being considered and made, until the time is right for disclosure.
But this source, who sits on the AFC Executive and is a privy to the discussions, told this newspaper that a faction in the party believes that, in the interest of transparency, members of the public and supporters of the AFC ought to know what is taking place at the negotiations.“The mood is that party members do not want them to make a decision that is binding for all of them…they want to understand the terms and conditions properly. They want it discussed and voted on before any agreement is reached…cause this won’t go down like in 2015…it’s either they give us more seats and more power, or we will walk away and go solo,” the Executive maintained.
Meanwhile, the coalition, in a brief statement on Wednesday evening, said it discussed at its Monday meeting “several national issues that required urgent attention, including arriving at an agreement for contesting Local Government Elections and Constitutional Reform”.
“The meeting was conducted in an atmosphere of the highest cordiality, and was most productive. This process will continue in earnest in the coming weeks. The coalition partners have agreed to release joint statements at appropriate times”, the statement ended.
The meeting took place on Monday afternoon following insistence of the Alliance For Change and the dispatch of several pieces of legislation between the two coalition partners.
The talks between the AFC and APU come on the heels of the first partner issuing an ultimatum last week to discuss several key issues before a formal decision is made by the AFC to coalesce for the polls.
On May 1, the AFC gave President David Granger fourteen days for the meeting to take place, after its executives had raised concerns about neglect, disrespect, and unfair treatment from APNU.