Crossing the Rubicon

Aug 12, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The AFC is ‘dead meat’. It had in January of 2015 forecast its own demise should it enter into an alliance with the PNCR. The AFC did not heed its own advice. It is now facing the consequences of its failure not to maintain its independence.

Had the AFC examined history closely, it could have avoided its ultimate demise. The AFC did not need to look too far; The United Force is a good example of the dangers of ‘independent’ parties sacrificing their independence.

The AFC’s calculation in 2015 was that it needed to get rid of the PPPC from government, and the only way this could have been done was to join forces with APNU. But the AFC did so under a hurried arrangement with the PNCR, an arrangement which naïvely was not able to overcome the vast powers of the Presidency. As such, throughout its tenure so far with APNU, the AFC has been more of a doormat than an influential arbiter.

The AFC’s rise to political fame was meteoric. No political party since 1966, has enjoyed such rapid growth in popular support than the AFC. In the 2011 elections, the party commanded more than 35,000 votes, securing 10.3% of the vote and winning seven seats, a phenomenal feat for a party which was only six years old.

Even the WPA, which under Walter Rodney had waged a bitter struggle against the PNC, had never managed such support at an election. In 1992, the WPA garnered 6,086 votes or 2% of the total number of votes cast and managed a mere one seat, based on the leftover votes after the main political parties had been allocated their seats,

The AFC was in rapture after the 2011 results. It declared that it held the balance of power in parliament. But the party became star-struck. Its leadership remained seized with a visceral hatred of the PPPC and instead of trying to use its ‘balance of power’ to effect benefits for the Guyanese people, it used it as a weapon to destabilize the rule of the PPPC in parliament. It was the AFC which orchestrated the no-confidence motion which triggered the ensuing political crisis in the country.

The AFC was encouraged to join forces with APNU and fell for the trap. It is now facing doomsday, just like The United Force was in 1964.

In that year, The United Force secured 29,612 votes or 21.4% of the total votes cast in the 1964 elections. The United Force then joined forces with the PNC to form the government. That was allowed in those days.

Burnham then did to The United Force what the PNCR is now doing to the AFC. It marginalized the party and made it a virtual spectator in government.

By 1968, Burnham had no more need for The United Force. He announced that never again would he lead the Peoples National Congress into a coalition government. He had no need to. He orchestrated the demise of The United Force, first by forcing a number of its parliamentarians to cross the floor and become PNCR members of parliament, and then by shamelessly rigging the 1968 elections and forcing the leader of The United Force into political exile.

The AFC should have learnt from the experience of The United Force. In history, nothing is really new. Everything that is done today was done at some time in the past.

The PNCR is doing to the AFC what it did to The United Force. Instead of having members cross the floor, it has simply forced a change in the leadership of the AFC. There will be no crossing of the floor. There will be a Crossing of the Rubicon. Guyana is heading for dictatorship, and the AFC will be part of that, with some of its party’s leadership joining forces – mark these words – with the PNCR.

The PNCR has no need for the AFC anymore. It has refused to negotiate a fair deal with the AFC over local government elections, because it does not need the AFC to help its cause in those elections.

The PNCR has done its homework. AFC or no AFC, the PNCR will win and win commandingly in Georgetown and Linden, and all of the other constituencies which the APNU+AFC coalition won in the 2016 local government elections.

What the PNCR wants – and what it has gotten – is for the AFC to help it split the PPPC votes in PPPC-dominated constituencies. That is all the PNCR sees the AFC as being good for. The PNCR is consigning the AFC to the role of a vote-splitter.

The AFC is going to be weakened, regardless of how well it does in this year’s local government elections. Its leadership will be coerced into joining the PNCR. Just like The United Force crumbled after 1968, so too will the AFC.

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