PNC and its coalition partners are attention seekers

Dear Editor,
Recent developments relative to the PNC and the AFC coalescing have hit a snag in which the AFC have reported that they would rather go it alone as a single party into the election.
This latest announcement has created quite a stir in political circles, as there are several implications for the political parties involved as well as for the voting population on the whole. In the first place, what does “going it alone” mean for the AFC? What are the implications for that party? Can they command a significant voting pool with which they can win seats comfortably? Who would vote for that party? These are some of the questions one would ask as we head into the next election.
So, what can be drawn from this latest fallout? What is pellucid is that these two opposition members are at loggerheads as to who should be the presidential candidate to lead the coalition into the election. Norton, who heads the largest party in that would-be coalition, is highly unpopular within his own party. Opinion polls have shown that the APNU under his leadership would suffer a disastrous defeat. A similar fate awaits the AFC, which Nigel Hughes controls. For his part, the AFC have been an abysmal failure ever since the deflection of Charrandas Persaud and the decimation of Indians in the party. That means the AFC cannot draw away swing voters from the PPP/C, which in itself creates a worst-case scenario.
Herein lies the crux of the matter: Aubrey Norton’s unpopularity versus Nigel Hughes’s inability to attract votes. Either party cannot exist without the other; there cannot be a “go it alone” for either party.
In my view the statement that the AFC would contest as a single entity is a hoax. That statement was meant to draw sympathy to these parties and hopefully gain some traction from the voters. The two parties are hopelessly locked in a situation that helps neither party, so they are trying desperately to gain attention from the Guyanese populace out there, who might somehow see them as a viable alternative to the PPP/C. The Coalition is on a slippery slope.
This is the situation that confronts the would-be coalition:
1. Mohamed is a sanctioned candidate, hence the coalition runs the risk of the entire Opposition being blacklisted or sanctioned with him. My suspicion is that this is the root cause of the breakdown of coalition talks; that is, the inclusion of Mohammed in the coalition.
2. Mohammed cannot gain votes from the strongholds of the PPP/C. Clear signs are from much of what is seen on social media. He is able only to attract support mainly from the PNC strongholds; which means the three entities: AFC, APNU and Team Mohamed, are fighting for votes from the same gene pool of voters, and that is a pretty confusing state of affairs.
3. The 2015 scenario comes into full view, and freshest in our minds is the way Indians – and by extension Guyanese – were used and abused by the dominant Black Group in that coalition: the closure of the sugar estates, the raising of taxes, and the rank cronyism that pervaded society. People are wary of the humiliating and demeaning way Nagamootoo, Ramjattan and Charrandas were treated after their union with that group of persons.
4. It would be a fantasy thought that the APNU would accommodate an Azruddin Mohamed near presidential status in any coalition. That will not happen!
5. The desperate move by the Coalition to blatantly rig the election and hold on to power speaks volumes to all the voters in this country that their goal, their purpose, is to hold on to power by any means necessary. I am confident that the voters in our country would see to it that this does not happen again.
Herald the point that Guyana is not about making that mortal mistake of 2015 again. When one views the actions of the Black Supremacists in the coalition after their union in 2015, we are doomed to a repeat in 2025 if ever that “tripartite arrangement” should come to fruition.  At this stage of our development, we cannot run the risk of another experiment.

Respectfully,
Neil Adams