Three months after joining forces to contest the September 1 Elections, the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party and A New and United Guyana (ANUG) appear to be at odds over the allocation of seats in the National Assembly.

WIN won a total of 16 seats to become the country’s main opposition in the National Assembly. However, after announcing its parliamentary list, WIN is being accused of leaving ANUG out in the cold, and engaging in “cut-throat” politics.

Leader of the WIN party, Azruddin Mohamed is denying the claims and he told News Source this past week that Nandranie Singh, who is the Region 4 Representative that has been extracted to take up a seat in Parliament, is an ANUG representative.

Mohamed explained that while there was an agreement in June for the two parties to join forces, ANUG had agreed to contest the elections under the WIN umbrella, emphasizing that the parties are not in a coalition.

“It is not a coalition, they came over to work with us, and we still have guys working with us under the WIN umbrella,” he said.

Further, Mohamed said that agreement did not address the allocation of parliamentary seats, although the party assigned a seat to Nandranie Singh, who joined WIN through ANUG.

He said in the future, there may be other opportunities for the original ANUG members to serve in the National Assembly under the WIN umbrella.

“We still have five more years, and I told all of my parliamentarians, all my MPs that after a year if they are not serving in the interest of the people, if they are not doing their job to the best of their ability, we will be shuffling around persons. So, maybe Mark [France] will fall in after a year, it is possible,” the party leader said.

Leader of ANUG, Dr Mark France signed the June agreement with the Leader of WIN, but has not offered any comments on the issue.

However a member of ANUG, who asked to remain anonymous, told News Source that the agreement signed between the sides, provided for the allocation of parliamentary seats to ANUG.

According to the representative, it was agreed that ANUG would be issued a total of two seats won by WIN.

“The agreement did speak to representation in parliament, guaranteed representation in parliament and based on the results, we are supposed to have at the very least, at least two parliamentarians,” the ANUG representative said.

The source said while Singh was allocated a seat in the House, she was not among the top nominees submitted to the party by ANUG, and there was no consultation ahead of the selection process, though WIN had promised that there would be a meeting.

 “We proposed other names. She was selected based on certain other criteria. She was one that was up for discussion but she was not one of the front runners. WIN on the other hand went for someone else who was on the ANUG slate,” he said.

The source said added to that, the party is still short of a seat.

According to the ANUG official, 29 of the 80 National Top Up names submitted to GECOM by WIN on Nomination Day came from ANUG..

Although feeling sidelined, the representative said ANUG looks forward to having a sit down with the leadership of WIN to iron out the issues.

Related posts:

Joinder seat can’t be rotated among parties -rules GECOM Dr. Kissoon plans to make reason known for her decision not to relinquish Parliamentary seat ANUG accuses TNM Leader of refusing to give up Joinder seat in Parliament Ramjattan sees no issue with Parliamentary seats as AFC prepares for coalition exit