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The Alliance For Change (AFC) reiterates its position that a coalition with either the People's National Congress Reform (PNCR) or the People's Progressive Party (PPP) will defeat its objectives of bringing an end to race-based voting and creating a balance of power between the two major parties.
AFC's Presidential Candidate Raphael Trotman made this disclosure in an interview with Kaieteur News.
He posited that while the AFC remains committed to working with all political parties to ensure peace and stability, the party will not move to form a political union with the PPP or the PNCR.
“We believe that by our very name, the alliance has to be a coming together of different political forces. We have not ruled out a coming together. We believe in the Third Force concept right now,” Trotman stated.
He noted that before the AFC was launched, AFC leaders had discussions with Joey Jagan, CN Sharma, Rupert Roopnarine, Paul Hardy, Ravi Dev and Keith Scott.
“The rationale for us coming into being is to separate the PPP and PNC from the death embrace that they found themselves locked into over the last 40 years. So to join one to defeat the other would be that we have taken a side and that would be contrary to the basic principle of our existence,” Trotman noted.
He stated that the party is willing to work with other parties to bring an end to race based violence.
Party Leader Khemraj Ramjattan told Kaieteur News that the AFC has tried in the past to bring on board other opposition parties that share their concept but they have failed to achieve this despite their best efforts.
He posited that with elections now close, the party has shifted its focus to preparations thus ruling out any major drive for a coalition with the smaller parties.
“If the AFC wins the elections, we will welcome the PPP, PNCR and other political parties willing to work with us so we can form a government of national unity,” Ramjattan noted.
The AFC, according to Ramjattan, is bent on winning enough votes to enter Parliament to create the balance of power in the national assembly.
“If we are not elected at the next polls, whoever forms the government, we intend to support them when they initiate development strategies but we intend to equally oppose them when they do not,” Ramjattan stated. (Gordon French)
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