PNCR General Secretary not worried about talk in WPA of leaving coalition

Last Updated on Monday, 19 March 2018, 12:22 by Denis Chabrol

General Secretary of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), Amna Ally on Monday shrugged off suggestions by sections of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) that it should leave her party’s dominated A Partnership for National Unity (APNU).

“We don’t have any deteriorating relations,” she told Demerara Waves Online News. She said “this little issue” concerning the discontinuation of columns by WPA Executive member, Professor David Hinds and trade unionist Lincoln Lewis in the Guyana Chronicle newspaper “is not going to break anything”.

“Sometimes people blow things out of proportion, but I am not worried about that,” Ally said. Reacting specifically to WPA Executive member, Tacuma Ogunseye saying at the weekend that his party should seriously consider withdrawing from APNU and the coalition, Ally reiterated that, “I think somebody is blowing that out of proportion. I don’t think that is so but I mean if it is so what else can you do,” he said.

Asked if she thought that if the WPA withdraws, that would weaken the coalition, she said, “in the first instance, I don’t think they will contemplate that but let’s see, time will unravel it”.

Told that the WPA’s concerns appeared to also date back to the removal of Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine from the post of Minister of Education and the closure of several sugar estates, the veteran PNCR member said discussions on those  issues were “closed off”.

“We have regular APNU meetings and the very Ogunseye, he attend those meetings. He and Tabita Sarabo, they all come to the meetings so those matters are already dealt with and understandably so,” he said. Sources have said APNU never met after the May 2015 general elections and all of 2016 until a 2017 when a few were held. The APNU last met in January and February, 2018 with their next meeting slated for May, 2018

Ogunseye said after careful consideration of the WPA’s experiences – negative and positive – in the APNU, the coalition and government, he thinks that his party must urgently discuss whether “it makes political sense to remain in the APNU coalition and government”.

The WPA Overseas Associates has said it would only give support to those who respect the WPA and the democratic principles and political culture on which the party was founded and would reconsider its support for any organization that continues to disrespect its principles including support of the governing coalition,