WHO GETS WHAT?

Feb 23, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The Alliance for Change entered into negotiations with APNU on the possibility of a pre-election coalition with a number of conditions. It has vacated the most important of these.
The AFC was definitive that it had to lead any coalition. This was a non-negotiable position. It wanted the Presidency since it felt this was the only guarantee that would have allowed the supporters of the PPP to vote for the coalition.
This guarantee is predicated on the fact that the holder of the presidency is the sole possessor of executive power and with this power in the hands of the AFC the supporters of the PPP would be more comfortable that their interests will be safeguarded under an APNU-AFC government.
Such an arrangement would allow the supporters of the AFC to be more secure and therefore more willing to vote for the coalition. It is this logic that forced the AFC to insist that it must lead the coalition and that this was a non-negotiable position. The AFC has since betrayed its own position.
In return for this betrayal, the AFC has been offered the position of Prime Minister in an APNU- AFC government with a promise that executive authority would be ceded to this person via constitutional change. But as argued before this promise is empty because constitutional change requires a two thirds majority which the coalition is never going to achieve. And if it were to be achieved, then it means that the AFC would have been able to capture a significant block of the PPP’s support base. In this scenario, it would have been much better for the AFC to go it alone because it would have stood a chance of winning a plurality.
The AFC has also been promised three vice presidents. Having accepted this promise from APNU, it then realizes that this will raise the specter of a bloated government typical of the PNC in its latter days when there were vice presidents, deputy vice presidents, ministers, ministers of State and a large and cumbersome bureaucracy which absorbed critical resources that could have been devoted to development.
Having accepted the promise of three vice presidents, the AFC then indicates that under an AFC/ APNU government, it would cut the number of ministries. It should have instead cut the fat that it is creating by having three vice presidents.
Another position that the AFC took into the coalition concerned the involvement of civil society and other groups in society. The AFC was not asking for a mere coalition with APNU. It was seeking a broader alliance of forces within the society. APNU however dangled the political carrots in front of the AFC who shamelessly bit them. There is now no mention of a coalition of broad forces. It is now a two party coalition with the AFC being promised forty per cent of the seats in the National Assembly. The twelve per cent party, the AFC, gets forty per cent. APNU gets the other sixty per cent. This means there is no place at the table for other forces.
In order to compensate for this, the agreement speaks to inclusionary democracy with a promise again that certain positions would be given to persons in civil society. Well that again is a promise that must be taken with a grain of salt because the Constitution only allows for a limited number of Cabinet positions for persons that were not part of a party list. With the AFC and APNU taking most of the Cabinet positions, nothing is left for the broader coalition of force. Inclusionary democracy cannot emerge from an exclusionary alliance.
The AFC has therefore compromised on its core principle as a third party that it would not align with any of the two political titans. It has surrendered its demands to lead the coalition. The AFC has also vacated its pledge to enter into a broad-based coalition. It has opted for what now amounts to a merger between itself and APNU. It is a decision that has implications for the future of the AFC.
For APNU there will also be implications. APNU comprises one major party, the PNCR, and a number of smaller parties.
Those smaller parties will have to get their cut of the sixty per cent share of the positions in parliament. That means that PNCR’s share of parliamentary seats will be significantly reduced. Yet it is that party which hoped to bring in more than 80% of the total votes for the coalition. How is the PNCR going to motivate its comrades to take to the campaign trail when it has given up so much of the spoils to both the AFC and to the smaller parties in APNU?
What happens if the coalition does not win? Who gets what then?

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WHO GETS WHAT?

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