Dear Editor,
I read with interest an editorial in the Stabroek News (Monday, February 16) captioned ‘The Cummingsburg Accord.’
I agree with the view advanced in the editorial that coalition politics in Guyana have not fared well. The PNC-UF coalition folded up a mere three years after its formation. One factor that was responsible for the collapse of the coalition government which was not sufficiently highlighted was the fact that there was no agreed programme on which to take the then colony of British Guiana forward. The only thing the two parties had in common was a common desire to remove the PPP from office. It was for all practical purposes a marriage of convenience. Ideologically, the two parties were poles apart with the United Force unapologetically capitalistic and the PNC at some unspecified location in the left of the ideological spectrum.
History, it would appear, is repeating itself. Today, another marriage of convenience has taken place, ironically on Valentine’s Day, between the PNC and the AFC with one common objective, namely the removal of the PPP/C from office. Apart from how to apportion parliamentary and cabinet seats in the highly unlikely situation of an electoral victory, there is hardly any mention of concrete measures of a programmatic nature on the way forward.
The editorial was unfair to the PPP/C by stating that there were hardly any transformational projects undertaken by the administration. Indeed, it would have been much more correct to say that the administration’s plans to modernize Guyana were obstructed by an unsupportive opposition which has now morphed into a political organism, not dissimilar to that of the ill-fated PNC-UF coalition.
Yours faithfully,
Hydar Ally