The Alliance For Change (AFC) has announced that it will be contesting the 2025 elections alone, however, it noted that the ‘door is always’ open for a change of this position before Nominations Day.
This revelation was made by AFC’s David Patterson during a press conference today.
The AFC and the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) have been engaged in discussions on a potential coalition for this year’s elections.
However, Patterson informed reporters that the two parties have been unable to reach a mutually acceptable agreement.
According to Patterson, “time is of the essence” and as such, the AFC will start campaigning independently.
Patterson added that APNU has already been informed of this decision.
The two parties had previously coalesced for the 2015 and 2020 elections.
The AFC and APNU first joined forces in 2015 under the Cummingsburg Accord, revised in 2019 with fewer concessions for the AFC before expiring in December 2022. The coalition won the 2015 elections but lost power after a no-confidence motion in 2018.
Originally, the AFC held a 40 per cent stake in the coalition, which was reduced to 30 per cent in the 2019 revision. The party’s declining influence was reflected in its poor performance in the 2018 local Government elections and its perceived role in the no-confidence motion’s passage. Following their 2020 election loss, the APNU/AFC alliance officially ended in December 2022.
In January the two sides had set March 31 as the deadline for negotiations on a partnership for this year’s polls.
According to reports, the two sides had been embroiled in disagreements over the presidential candidate and power sharing arrangements within the potential partnership.
The AFC had published its conditions for a coalition, including the demand of a 40-60 split of Government positions in APNU’s favour, that its leader Nigel Hughes is the Presidential Candidate, and that the presidential candidate’s party should not hold the Leader of the List position, which controls parliamentary appointments and removal.
On the other hand, Leader of the APNU Aubrey Norton, had made it clear that the Peoples National Congress (PNC) – the largest faction in APNU – would not accept what he described as disrespect or external dictates given that the PNC carries “the burden of the work”.
“We ain’t going to let nobody take their eyes pass we. I want to make this commitment to you that this party will not allow anybody to ride on our backs. We are prepared to engage and be reasonable but we are not prepared to bend over backwards,” Norton had said.
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