The AFC: Much too little, much too late

Feb 09, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The Alliance For Change has come out against the parking meter implementation in its present form. It wants the current shape of the project to cease. One can only speculate if this is a direct result of the vibes that its leadership picked up at its national conference two weeks ago. If so, it means that the AFC would be trying to salvage its original ontology which propelled it to nation recognition and societal admiration. If this is so, it has come too late
It is outside the scope of one column to enumerate the flaws that the AFC deliberately fertilized in its garden to cause the flowers to wilt after it went into power in 2015. These will have to wait for future analyses. For now, I want to look at one particular weakness which it looks like it has now discovered, thus its parking meter statement. It has to do with its acceptance that as a party in government it has to take a united stance with Cabinet and therefore cannot criticize its partners’ mistakes. This is crude ignorance of what a coalition government is.
I now quote from my June 21, 2016 column captioned; “Has the WPA betrayed Rodney, its supporters and itself?” to define the nature of Coalition Government. “Coalition government is seldom solid. What makes coalition rule unsteady is the very nature of it – it is a coalition. Any dictionary will inform you that a coalition regime is a number of different organizations that came together with each wanting to use the State, if it wins elections, to implement its ideas and programmes. The most common example of instabilities that characterize coalition governments is Israel. Each party has its own agenda, and to form a government, the larger parties have to make concessions. Some of these parties are theocratic, some strongly anti-Palestinian, some pro-compromise.
Italy once had several governments within each year because the coalition entities could never agree thus they would pull out of the formation and new elections would have to be held. Italy became a joke around the world for the number of governments it would have in each year. One thing is common in coalition administrations – each party must have some of its cores values transmitted into policy. There is no way a coalition would last if one of its units is an environment party and the government refuses to commit itself to climate change. What brings trouble in multi-party regimes is that each of the units fights in government to keep its raison d’etre.”
Again in my August 30, 2016 column titled, “Cabinet Solidarity in Coalition Regimes is Pathetic Nonsense.” I wrote the following; “There is no such thing as cabinet solidarity in coalition regimes because it is a contradiction in terms. How can you say the mango is sweet bad but very bitter? The two cannot be reconciled. Bitter/sweet taste is not a scientific term but a romantic phrase and is popular in literature but has no place in science. Either the milk is good or it has turned. You cannot have turned milk that is good to drink. You cannot have a unitary cabinet if there are several parties that make up the government. The loyalty of each party is to country, party and supporters.
I am not going to define what a coalition regime is here. What the PNC, AFC and WPA have been doing is to mask their opportunism by telling Guyanese, they cannot speak about this and that because not is not the way Cabinet operates; Ministers have to show solidarity with the Cabinet. That is not only foolish but dishonest.”
The analyst is hard pressed to project a scenario for the next three years in which the AFC can recapture that original ontology and national support it once had. But more importantly, the gargantuan question is; does it have a significant pool of dependent voters as the PNC and PPP do. Sadly, the answer is no.

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