APNU cautious about AFC’s “secret talks”

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) said it was in favour of non-disclosure of negotiations on a pre-elections coalition with the Alliance For Change (AFC), but remained cautious given earlier pussyfooting by the minority Opposition party.

APNU General Secretary Joseph Harmon on Monday confirmed that the party was in receipt of a proposal from the AFC stipulating the way forward on the coalition talks.

The AFC, over the weekend, said a draft proposal stipulating that talks could only be held in secret was submitted to APNU for the party’s consideration.

Secret

However, when contacted by the Guyana Times International on Monday, Harmon explained that from where he stood as APNU’s General Secretary, secret talks would not be an issue.

He opined that he was in favour of the AFC’s stated prerequisite to dialogue, that is, a secret agreement on the part of both parties.

According to Harmon, APNU will be discussing the agreement in the near future, but he was unable to say when this will be.

“I agree that we need not have these discussions in the public domain,” said the APNU Member of Parliament.

He explained that APNU has many partners and some of them are on vacation out of the jurisdiction; hence, they would not be able to discuss the AFC’s proposal.

When further pressed about a possible timeframe for APNU to give an answer to the AFC, Harmon said that he was not willing to publicly put a timeframe on the party’s in-house discussion on the issue.

“We are going to get back to the AFC very soon on the matter,” he said.

Co-Chair of APNU, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine said that from his view, the electorate was very much “interested” in what the future holds in terms of an APNU/AFC coalition contesting the next General and Regional Elections.

In an invited comment to the Guyana Times International, Dr Roopnaraine said: “Voters, I believe, are interested in whatever alliance that can secure a victory at the upcoming elections.”

Political points

Political observers have noted that the announcement of coalition talks by the AFC is just a way of gaining political points and the notion to form a broad coalition with APNU may not be genuine.

Many persons have pointed to the “mixed signals” coming from the smaller political party.

Roopnaraine told GTI that mixed signals were not uncommon in the political sphere.

The AFC release had said that “in the last meeting of the General Secretaries of both parties, the AFC tabled a non-disclosure agreement for the review and signing by the APNU, with the clear understanding that on the return of the signed document, the AFC would release to APNU, our Draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which would form the template for our negotiations”.

Announcement

The party added: “It should be noted that we don’t intend to negotiate agreement within the public space and, therefore, will not be commenting further on this matter until there is a substantive announcement to be made.”

The AFC indicated that while it awaited a response from APNU on the non-disclosure agreement, it was prepared to “issue a draft MoU to the APNU within 24 hours of receiving the signed non-disclosure document”.