With firstly the ignominious collapse of the coalition that constituted APNU, which is now just the PNC, and the pathetic handful milking Rodney’s name as the WPA, and secondly the one proposed between the PNC and the AFC, the merits and demerits of coalitions in Guyanese politics have risen once again to the fore. It must be emphasised from the onset that the attitudes of the leaders are critical in the formation of coalitions: if they are concerned with only winning elections for personal gains and power, then the risks they will be prepared to take for real change that will redound to the benefit of Guyana will be minimal. And it was this predisposition we saw on display recently, with the focus being totally on positions and office, pelf and power, and nary a word on plans for developing Guyana and her people.
In our modern political history, the coalition that has defined the political arrangement, apparently for all times, was that entered into by the PNC and the UF in December 1964 and which removed the PPP from office. They were strange bedfellows, driven by one consideration – to form a Government that would keep out the PPP – and this arrangement of expediency demonstrates the pitfalls of what has been labelled the “coalition of convenience”. This describes the coalition entered into by APNU and the AFC in 2015 and once again contemplated by the PNC and the rump AFC recently. Such coalitions are very unstable, and few survive their term of office for several reasons. Firstly, their focus is totally electoral – adding up seats – while ignoring the cleavages and forces that made them form separate parties and run on separate platforms in the first place. These differences may surface early on during negotiations and inevitably later when policies and programmes have to be formulated and implemented – or more usually when spoils are divvied up.
Secondly, there is the disproportion of size. The larger party sees itself as the senior member to which the smaller should defer, while the latter considers itself as an equal due to its strategic position in “tipping the balance”. This was the dynamic operating between APNU and the AFC in 2015 and more recently in the aborted negotiations between the PNC and AFC towards a possible coalition. Thirdly, since the capture of power is their prime motivator, the parties constantly manoeuvre to monopolise the same, using bribery, defections, etc. The several high-ranking members of the AFC who defected to the PNC – and pulled the rug out from under their ambitious, erstwhile leader – had long been seduced by the PNC. The latter could present a much more credible case for obtaining office or at least seats in Parliament, which could be distributed: AFC’s Juretha Fernandes is made the PM candidate by the PNC’s Norton.
Coalitions of convenience are to be avoided, since the cynicism that attends their birth ensures them an early, acrimonious death. The 1964 coalition between the PNC and the UF broke down within two years of its formation as Mr Burnham enticed members of the UF (as well as the PPP) to cross the floor to create a moot situation when, by 1967, the PNC was showing clearly that it was going to rig the next elections and rid itself of its erstwhile partner, Peter D’Aguiar. The UF leader left the coalition but could not bring down the Government. With the PNC holding all the cards after 2015, history repeated itself, and it was only the AFC’s leaders abasing themselves that kept the arrangement nominally alive. As in 2020 with the PNC/APNU and the AFC and today with the WPA, the latter can only cling to the latter’s petticoat.
For stable coalitions, in addition to the above-mentioned structural prerequisites, there must be a high level of trust arising from an intimacy of relations between the leaders. The PPP has insisted on such trust for possible coalitions with opposition forces.
