The matrimonial bed remains off-limits for the AFC

Nov 24, 2019 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The Alliance For Change (AFC) may have been allowed to enter the matrimonial bedroom. But the matrimonial bed remains off-limits.
The AFC has gotten most of what it wanted. It will now be assured of the Prime Ministerial post and pension. The party will also be guaranteed ten seats in the next National Assembly. It was against this expectation that at the 14th anniversary ball, there was breakdancing, backslapping and backchat about the AFC having forced APNU to bend to much of the AFC’s demands.
The leadership of the AFC should be satisfied by the initial agreement reached with APNU. They got far more than they deserved. The ‘big boys and gals’ within the AFC are now guaranteed to sit at the banquet table. They will pocket healthy salaries, pensions and allowances as members of Cabinet and parliament. However, there are no safeguards to prevent the PNCR from sidelining the AFC within the government.
What guarantees have the AFC negotiated to ensure that its Ministers have real and effective powers? None!
What assurances does the AFC have that it will not be sidelined in Cabinet, since there is no agreement which requires special majorities before any decision is taken? None!
And what about its role within the public bureaucracy? What is to prevent another imbroglio in which a decision made by its Prime Minister was overruled by a Minister? What role will its leaders, who will not be Ministers, play?
There is no assurance that the position of Prime Minister, so aggressively fought for by the AFC during the negotiations, will not again be reduced to a rubber stamp.
There is no promise that the AFC’s ministerial portfolios will not be degutted as they were during the present term. The Natural Resources portfolio was denuded of the critical oil and gas sector. The AFC was even relieved of responsibility for the environment. That Ministry is now effectively a gold mining and forestry ministry, sectors that are in terminal decline.
Khemraj Ramjattan was handed a severely degutted Ministry of Public Security. The citizenship and immigration portfolios were carved out and given to a specially created Ministry for this purpose. The AFC minister was further humiliated when security sector reform was snatched away, even though he is the subject Minister for Public Security.
The Ministry of Business was splintered. A new Ministry was created to assume the portfolios of telecommunication and tourism, which previously fell under the Ministry of Business.
The Minister of Public Infrastructure was close-marked from day one. His portfolio is limited by the funds which are provided by the Ministry of Finance and by international infrastructural agreements signed and executed by that Ministry.

An AFC Minister was granted a junior minister status in the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs. This was a token appointment.
The leadership of the AFC negotiated for itself. It got what it wanted. But what about the membership? The AFC’s gains during the negotiations with the PNCR have yielded nothing for its membership and supporters.
Will the AFC continue to allow its financiers to be discriminated against by APNU? And what has it negotiated for its members. What are their entitlements and to what can they look forward?
The AFC could not have entered into a coalition unless the “division of spoils” were made explicit. It would have hamstrung the AFC to have gone into the campaign without such guarantees. But the AFC will be equally handicapped if it has nothing to promise its members and supporters.
The next stage of the negotiations will therefore be critical. This next stage will determine whether the AFC can extract a programme of benefits for its supporters. It will indicate whether the Coalition is prepared to reverse the course on the sugar industry, reduce the powers of the Minister of State in the Ministry of the Presidency, ensure consensus in decision-making, require greater ethnic and gender balance in public appointments, and force changes in the country’s economic management.
The AFC has made its deal. It will be allowed re-enter the matrimonial bedroom. But it will have to sleep on the floor. And as for sex, that is completely out of the question.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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The matrimonial bed remains off-limits for the AFC

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