EQUAL PARTNERS IN AN UNEQUAL PARTNERSHIP

Jun 24, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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If ever there was a man for the moment, a near perfect candidate to lead an all-opposition coalition to contest next year’s elections, it is Winston Murray.
He is someone who is respected across the political spectrum of Guyana. He does not have the taint of the old PNC attached to him, even though he has been around for some time. His presentations in parliament indicate that he understands his portfolio as a shadow minister for finance and trade.
The middle and upper classes will not find problems in working with him.
He is someone who can fire the imagination of the people, hold an all- opposition coalition together and help win the critical crossover votes that would be necessary if the coalition is to stand a chance. And it is by no means guaranteed that an all opposition coalition is going to steam roll the PPP.
Defeating the PPP is not going to be an easy task for any coalition. While such an alliance merges constituents and supporters in a common pact, there is also some fallout since not everyone is usually in favor of their party aligning with others.
This often entails having to make sacrifices that leave some leaders on the sidelines. It also involves having to compromise, a process that can create detractors within the ranks of the individual parties.
Coalitions have never worked in these parts. And they have never been easy to assemble.
Can Winston Murray be the man to change this and the course of Guyanese history? Murray has to be a frontrunner to lead any opposition coalition. Since, the leader of the PNCR, Robert Corbin, has indicated that he will not stand as his party’s presidential candidate for the 2011 elections, it is most likely that he will also not stand as the presidential candidate for any proposed coalition.
The PNCR will be the most powerful member of any opposition coalition. And already there are voices insisting that this PNCR electoral strength be respected.  This is a clear signal that there are forces who do not wish to see the PNCR becoming a junior partner in any all- opposition alliance. There has also been an insistence that the AFC should not consider itself as a equal partner with the PNCR.
The question of equality of membership is going to be a sore point in any coalition. During the Herdmanston talks, a senior government official made it clear that his opposite number from the PNCR was not his equal. This became the pretext for the PNCR pulling out of the process.
The PNCR then demanded an apology insisting that their man was a member among equals in the negotiating process. Is the PNCR willing to treat the other parties in the proposed coalition as equals in an unequal coalition? Or will the PNCR insist on its share of the cake?
Clearly if electoral strength is factored into the equation, then the PNCR will have to dominate any coalition since at the last elections it secured 35 per cent of those who voted. If the result of the 2006 elections is going to be basis of negotiations within the coalition, then the AFC is going to be a 10 per cent party, unless it is hoping to use the results of the CADRES poll to demand equality with the PNCR.
The CADRES poll had given the AFC 26 percent and the PNCR 31 per cent. If this poll is to be the basis of the proposed coalition, then it would mean that the AFC would have as much strength as the PNCR in any alliance and thus would have the right to demand either the Presidential candidate or the Prime Ministerial candidate.
But in any showdown between Winston Murray and Khemraj Ramjattan, the former is likely to do better than the latter and therefore Winston Murray will most likely be the frontrunner.
Any self respecting PNCR is however not going to accept the CADRES poll as the basis of a partnership with the AFC. For to do so would be to suggest that the AFC support has increased tremendously since the last elections while the PNCR support has remained the same.
To concede that the AFC now commands 26% of the electorate may be hard for the major opposition to swallow.
The PNCR is therefore likely to insist that when it comes to assessing the relative strengths of the coalition members, the results of the 2006 elections and not the CADRES poll should be the basis of deciding the question of who brings what to the coalition and thus who should be more senior.
The second problem is that there seems to be some opposition building towards Mr. Winston Murray assuming the leadership of the coalition.  While it is being acknowledged in some quarters that the PNCR should be the senior partner in any coalition, when it comes to the leadership issue, there are proposals for the PNCR and thus Mr. Murray, to be sidelined from being the presidential candidate.
Why ask the PNCR to be part of a coalition yet reject one of its leaders, Mr. Winston Murray, from becoming the consensus candidate? Why have someone from outside of the parties if there is someone from within the parties who can be the ideal candidate?
Why is Winston Murray not suitable to lead an all opposition coalition?

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