PNCR invites WPA, JFAP to discuss rejoining APNU; JFAP not interested

Last Updated on Sunday, 9 January 2022, 18:07 by Denis Chabrol

The People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) has invited the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) and the Justice For All Party (JFAP) to meetings to discuss rejoining A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), and the WPA has already laid down several minimum conditions while the JFAP is not interested.

A top PNCR official told News-Talk Radio Guyana 103.1 FM/ Demerara Waves Online News that letters have been dispatched to the those two small parties, inviting them to talks. “The party has written them, inviting them as the leading party ad a sister-party in APNU and encouraging them to return,” the official said, adding that “the PNCR is keen on having the WPA and the JFA return to the APNU and we’re very cognisant of procedures.”

JFAP General Secretary Savitrie Sharma said her husband and party leader Chandra Narine Sharma received a letter from the PNCR inviting him to a meeting to discuss reentry to APNU, but she said that he was not in good health and she was too busy. “He would wish to go and join up back with them but I don’t he is capable of doing it at this stage of his life and he has to focus more on his health and for me I don’t want to get back into that political arena and the time has come when we are getting older and we need to take a back seat now,” she said. Mrs. Sharma said the JFAP was no longer active.

WPA Executive Member David Hinds confirmed that his party received the PNCR’s invitation and would have to meet internally before going into talks with that party. Dr. Hinds said his party would only return to APNU if there are concrete commitments on key issues such as the WPA’s right to choose its parliamentary representative, the shaping and agreement to policies and frequent meetings. “The first thing is that each member of the coalition or the APNU must have the right of autonomy, the right to decide on its own representatives (in the National Assembly),” he said. Dr. Hinds said the WPA would no longer get into a “name only” coalition but one with structures and systems that “must work” so that decisions could be made democratically. “There must be consensus in decision-making because a coalition is a very tenuous, is a very fragile thing and one has to be very careful about decision-making. If one party make a decision then that’s not a coalition,” the WPA executive member said.

The JFAP had exited APNU shortly after the March 2, 2020 general and regional elections after Representative of the List of candidates for APNU+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC), David Granger had said that a party needed at least 7,000 votes to deserve a parliamentary seat. The WPA had left APNU after Mr. Granger had picked Tabitha Sarabo-Halley, marking the end of a testy relationship punctuated by concerns over lack of consultations.

The PNCR official restates that David Granger-approved membership of the Guyana Nation Builders Party and the Equal Rights and Justice Party has been “put on hold.”

The PNCR source said after meetings are held with individual partners in APNU, a combined APNU meeting would be held. A separate meeting is also being planned between the PNCR and the AFC.

APNU is made up of PNCR, Guyana Action Party and the National Front Alliance.