Latest update January 18th, 2025 2:52 AM
APNU, AFC partnership…Dispute mechanism never resorted to
… parties resolved matters through interactions – Ramjattan
Chairman and outgoing Leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Khemraj Ramjattan, said
AFC Chairman, Khemraj Ramjattan
on Thursday, that the dispute-settlement mechanism provided for in the political accord with A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) was never used.
The Cummingsburg Accord, struck on Saturday February 14, 2015 by the APNU and the AFC to contest the May 11, 2015 General Elections on a joint slate was the most significant coalition in opposition politics in Guyana since independence, he said.
The dispute mechanism provides for a three-member commission comprising a mutually agreed independent person as Chairman; and two non-executive members of the AFC and APNU. They are supposed to hear all legitimate complaints and recommend solutions which the two sides are bound to accept except if they are illegal.
The Cummingsburg Accord, which has a lifespan of 36 months, comes to an end in 2018.
Ramjattan, the nation’s Public Security Minister, during the AFC’s bi-weekly press conference on Thursday, admitted that the provision was not 100 percent implemented because both parties, at the leadership level, and other members at various levels would resolve most of them through interaction.
“Most of them were resolved – 90 percent of them. There are some that are hard to resolve because of financial and economic realities. But there was provided for, a mechanism that we thought came off as a bit cumbersome and especially, of the advantage of dealing directly with the General Secretary and Leader to Leader. It resolved almost all of them; we utilised that.
Ramjattan said that he does not know if the Coalition will have to “fall back” into that dispute resolution mechanism because the provisions “it is a little complicated”.
“And when you’re in such a good relationship with your partner, I think we can resolve it at the Leader-level or the General Secretary-level. This is a partnership; this is not something like a commercial transaction whereby you’re going to be like the Merchant of Venice asking for your pound of flesh.
“You have a political contract, not a commercial transaction – where you go and you talk and you resolve –and we have been doing that,” Ramjattan stated.
The party was established in 2005 by Trotman, Ramjattan, and the late Sheila Holder from the Working People’s Alliance (WPA).
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