In the last few years, important elements in the People's National Congress Reform came to accept that given the present political configuration it was not possible for the party to win an election. Two points must be noted here, which will be developed briefly below. First the party never had won a fair election on its own. Secondly, the conclusion assumes that the political configuration cannot be changed with a proper strategy and intensive campaigning.

Having come to that conclusion, the party appointed a committee to consider the question of power sharing. That committee crafted a reasonably detailed proposal for executive power sharing which was submitted to the ruling party, the People's Progressive Party Civic. The response of that party was essentially twofold, first it said that it was necessary to develop a much higher level of trust between the two parties than now exists for power sharing to be a viable proposition and secondly it suggested that executive power sharing was not the only form of a more inclusive governance and that, for example, some of the constitutional changes that had already been agreed which gave parliament more power, represented a devolution of power.

And there the matter has rested, there has been no further movement on this issue, in or outside of the dialogue process, and no discussions have taken place on the PNC's proposal.

Power sharing is not a straightforward solution as some of its proponents imply. It was not implemented in Fiji by the government despite a constitutional provision that required it. It has been aborted, for now at least, in Northern Ireland. It worked as a transitional mechanism in South Africa. It has worked in Switzerland and Belgium. In principle, it can work and it appears to provide an attractive solution to the impasse created by ethnically based voting patterns. But there are obvious theoretical objections to it. For example, it can lead to gridlock in the power sharing cabinet, it hardens ethnic division rather than softens it by recognising and adopting the status quo of ethnic representation, where there is a grand coalition (e.g. PPPC/PNCR) it virtually destroys a parliamentary opposition, putting the burden of opposition to and criticism of governmental measures on civil society, and it tends to create a politics of deals behind closed doors between the ethnic overlords which are presented to parliament as a fait accompli. In its proposal, the PNCR seeks to respond to some of these obvious dangers to the model.

Those who now strongly advocate power sharing have argued that it should be tried , even if only as a temporary measure, in an effort to create some level of political stability and economic development. They argue that the Westminster model (with the Presidential variation) of winner-take-all has failed given ethnic voting patterns and has proved divisive. They say that it will create a breathing space. Critics point out that a majority will still exist in the power sharing cabinet with all the potential that creates for discord. In other words, the problem is being pushed back from elections and parliament to the cabinet and assumes a high level of political culture in that cabinet including respect and trust for each other and a willingness to compromise for this system to work.

Let us return briefly to the two points raised above. The position that the PNCR has reached now was reached by many analysts over forty years ago. Given the voting patterns established in the 1957, the 1961 and the 1964 elections it was clear that the PNC could not win an election on its own. The rigged elections from 1968 to 1985 obfuscated this obvious fact.

Secondly, it has always been on the cards that a reconstituted PNC, or perhaps a PNC in alliance with other forces, could win a fair election. 1964 proved this as in the first election under proportional representation the PPP did not get an overall majority of the vote, as it had not done in 1957 and 1961. It is impossible to say what really happened in the rigged elections of 1968, 1973, 1980 and l985 but though one can be confident that the PPP would have continued to get the largest vote, it may not have obtained a majority. It did obtain a majority in 1992, 1997 and 2001 after fair elections had been restored but that is because it got a substantial part of the Amerindian vote and some of the small but not insignificant floating vote that still exists in Guyana.

In other words, there is still at least a theoretical possibility that the PNC could win a fair election if it could capture a large part of the Amerindian vote, now quite significant, and the bulk of the floating vote. This would require extensive long-term campaigning and a reconstruction of the party's political policies and strategy.

Those points having been made, the question that remains is what exactly is the policy of the PNC at this stage. It has participated in the process of constitutional reform which has led to some significant changes in the direction of more inclusive governance. It has submitted a proposal for executive power sharing. That proposal has not been accepted or even discussed so far. Will it take any further initiatives on this score, will Mr Corbin seek to raise it in the dialogue process? It might create some momentum, perhaps, if the party were to respond to what the PPP had said and to explore the possibility of opening some sort of dialogue on this matter. Simple demands for power sharing by senior party members will not do the trick. What is required at a minimum, as has been the case elsewhere, is a structured dialogue process concentrated on this issue alone (in other words, in addition to the existing dialogue process), and with the benefit of an experienced and dedicated facilitator with secretarial and other facilities, in an effort to iron out the difficult issues involved, some of which have been raised in the PNCR's proposal.