“Hi Jeff: has APNU `disappear’ the PNC?” Colourfully put, but not an uncommon query. Perhaps stated more cogently the question should have been: why has the PNC let itself be `disappeared’ by APNU?
Strange as it may appear to some, many voters still do not understand why it has been necessary for the PNC to lose its electoral identity within the entity called “A Partnership for National Unity.” Such persons tend to be traditional PNC supporters who, caught by a surprise enquiry of how will they vote, still find it difficult to spontaneously reply that they will vote APNU. Indeed, there is a school of thought that claims that by this blurring of its own existence, the PNC has, perhaps unwittingly, opened at least a miniscule opportunity for other parties to recruit within its constituency. I believe that this may be overstating the case, for both the PPP and the PNC have historically been very aware of the importance of their identity to their core constituencies. It is for this reason that we have the “C” in the PPP and the “Reform” and “One Guyana” in the PNC. But perhaps it is these failed PNC metamorphoses that have suggested to the new partnership that these kinds of combinations have run their course and have become stale if not dysfunctional.
The main reason coalitions are formed is to position their constituent parties to gain and/or influence government and this depends in no small measure, inter alia, on the composition and structure of the
