Can the AFC pull it back?

Jan 19, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There comes a time in one’s professional life when a simple answer eludes you. I am in my mid- sixties. At age 16, I entered political activism; I was a polling agent for the PPP in the 1968 general election at my primary school, St Thomas More on D’ Urban Street, Wortmanville. I have been involved in political discourse and political activities since then.
Coupled with that experience is the fact that I have studied philosophy right up the doctoral level, yet the above question I cannot answer. Can the AFC pull it back and be the socially strong organism it was from 2006 to 2015? Given that background of mine described above, I should answer the question. I confess I cannot give a monosyllabic response. Guyana’s politics, Guyana’s political behaviour and Guyana’s political climate are too complex to offer definitive conclusions.
This article will take the form of looking at a particular crucial conceptual mistake of the AFC that has dented its credibility among its constituents. I will elongate in subsequent pieces; it covers ground dealt with in three columns; it is about coalition government. The AFC for reasons either of abysmal ignorance or sad naivety entered office without even a cursory understanding of what a coalition government is and what are the obligations of each party to the other.
The past record around the world is rich in material of how coalitions in power function. I explained in three columns citing example from around the world including the UK, Israel, Italy, Germany but the AFC doesn’t seem to want to learn. I am not going to repeat the content of those three columns. Suffice it to say coalition functionalism is about each party in government attempting to have their agenda implemented without denying the rest of the constituents their right to have their agenda turned into policies too.
The AFC entered office operating as if the Cabinet was a unitary one. Time and time again, all its leaders argued that AFC ministers cannot go against Cabinet decisions because that is how government functions. That is not the way coalition government functions.
One pertinent example is in order. When Hamilton Green’s 1992 pension was widened to be retroactive from 2016, the AFC voted for the motion in the House.
That was the right thing to do because as the partner of the APNU it had to support the APNU’s agenda. The Hamilton Green pension Bill was none of the business of AFC and the party should not have tried to stop it. They didn’t and that was astute politics. The PNC (not APNU) wanted that motion and had a right to have is passed. Many persons told me the AFC lost support over the Green pension thing. That is misleading. Those constituents who disliked what Green got would never vote for the PNC anyway so why should the PNC care about how they think about Hamilton Green?
Yes, there was a fall out with the AFC in Indian constituencies over the pension thing but it was for the AFC to explain to its constituencies that as a partner in government with the PNC, the PNC must have its agenda accepted likewise the PNC will not stand in the way of the AFC’s programmes and schemes. But where are the AFC agenda items?
It was the AFC in 2016 that shaped an amendment excising draconian parts of Hoyte’s 1988 anti-narcotic legislation. The Bill was in the name of the AFC (its parliamentarian Michael Carrington). It was on the order paper of the House in 2016 to be read but right now it is off radar.
My point is that the AFC must let the Guyanese people know that in the coalition, each of the two parties respect each other’s agenda and will not interfere. But then one must ask where the AFC policies are that it wants implemented? In a coalition arrangement, your supporters will not dump you if you accept the policies of your partners in power. What they want is to see you pursue the things you promised.
Two other wrong turns the AFC made. One is that their supporters throughout Guyana do not believe that the second in charge constitutionally, is the second in charge. AFC supporters want to see the Prime Minister wield power the way Minister Joe Harmon does. It was the AFC that held a retreat at the Arthur Chung Centre and concluded through its press release that Minister Harmon has too many portfolios.
Surely, in saying so the AFC was telling its supporters that its PM is not second in charge. Finally, the Ministry of Agriculture’s performance is a problem for the AFC.

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