AFC is very comfortable being APNU’s poodle

MAKE no mistake about it. The big difference between the 2011 and the 2015 election is that the AFC and APNU/PNCR will end the deception of being separate with distinct options for the people of Guyana. They were one before the 2011 elections, but decided to go to the 2011 polls as Separate but Together. In the 2015 election they will end the deception and become One and the Same. AFC will end up as Granger’s poodle, a role they were very comfortable with in the 10th Parliament.I challenge them to tell the people, particularly those in Regions 5 and 6 and also in Regions 2 and 3, that this is not so. Let them come out clearly and say that they will not form a coalition with the PNCR as the junior partner. The partnership in 2011 election was for AFC to campaign in areas that are known PPP support based and not to do so in the PNC/APNU support-based areas.
The truth is that both APNU and AFC know that they cannot win an election by themselves. They have conceded that the PPP can win and will win the 2015 elections, by majority or by plurality. The AFC knows that it is a small political party and all it can do is huff and puff and beat its chest. APNU knows that it is a political party that has over its entire history placed its fortune on ethnic politics and that it will never win any free and fair election as an ethnic political party. This is the starting point for the 2015 elections.
Having conceded and accept these facts, these two political parties are scrambling for a new kind of dispensation that can change their destiny. They decided a long time ago that they needed to form a pre-election coalition. They have met and decided that a pre-election coalition is a must for them. There is nothing wrong with this kind of analysis. Every political party must consider what is best for them in any election. It is a prudent thing always for political parties and politicians to consider.
But the emergence of a pre-election coalition between APNU and AFC is taking place amid deceit and lies, wicked games and mixed messages. AFC was aggressive through most of 2014, particularly after November 2014, in trying to persuade the people in Regions 5 and 6 and also in Regions 2 and 3 that they will not form a coalition with APNU/PNC. In African-Guyanese communities, they elevated the possibility of AFC and APNU in a coalition and gave the impression that this is under active consideration.
Why the different messages? Clearly, they recognised that in Regions 2, 3, 5 and 6 and in parts of Regions 4, 1, 7, 8 and 9, the possibility of the AFC becoming part of APNU would turn away those who supported them in 2011. They know that the possibility of the AFC being a part of the PNCR/APNU platform would spell doom for them. Yet throughout all of their public uttering in certain parts of Guyana that they will not form a coalition with the PNCR or APNU, whichever form that group takes, they were having secret meetings with APNU to conclude on just that coalition. This is wicked deception and can only come from the minds of people like Nagamoottoo, Ramjattan and Hughes, etc.
The secret meetings, however, were not so secret and they got caught lying to people. They changed the tune – they then proclaimed that they would embrace a coalition with the PNCR if it would allow the AFC to be the senior partner with the top of the ticket. In a public meeting in Berbice and in other public fora, the AFC now takes the position that they are not forming a coalition with the PNCR, but that the PNCR is seeking to join the AFC. What crap are they trying to foist on innocent people? The truth is the coalition is a non-starter unless Granger is at the top of the ticket and that is because the AFC knows that the only possibility of an APNU/AFC coalition is the AFC playing a junior partner role, jumping to the tune of APNU.
The truth is that having decided that their only hope might be a coalition between the AFC and the PNC the AFC is now trying to ensure that they will not be marginalised by the PNCR in a coalition with that party. Their bold pronouncement that they must be given the top spot and must be the senior partner in any coalition is merely a bargaining posture to ensure that they are not marginalised from the very beginning. They want to ensure that they share the top positions and they are guaranteed enough places in Parliament. They are well aware of what happened in the 1960s with the United Force when the PNC used the coalition to destroy the United Force (UF).
These are people who speak eloquently on transparency. Both APNU and AFC have accused the PPP/C Government of not being transparent. They have argued that they will conduct government business in a transparent manner. Yet they have a history that is a hefty albatross around their necks. The PNC/APNU illegally controlled the Government for almost three decades, a period in which dictatorship dominated and transparency was never an option that the PNC Government even contemplated.
It was during that period when secret wars were waged against innocent people. People were hounded through the Income Tax Department. People were arrested without any probable causes. People were killed in conspiracies that were the purview of only a few. The Headquarters of the PNC, Congress Place, was the seat of government. Party paramountcy prevailed. The present Commission of Inquiry into the Walter Rodney assassination is a good insight into the secrets and non-transparency of the PNC Government. That is what APNU brings to government and the people of Guyana have not forgotten that.
This is what the AFC is joining and this is what they are offering to the people of Guyana. In playing hide and seek with the Guyanese public as to whether they will join in a coalition with the PNC, they are well aware of the albatross APNU/PNC carries. They know that the people will not forgive them for betraying the trust they placed in them when in 2011 the AFC was privileged to have seven seats in Parliament. Yet their effort to demonstrate to people that they will not be playing second fiddle to the PNC is a futile effort.
The people have seen them in the 10th Parliament for the last three years. Since the 2011 elections, the coalition between the AFC and APNU has been revealed with all of its ugly and heinous stripes. In spite of all of their pronouncements, these two parties have worked together before the last elections. In the last elections, they agreed that the AFC will work almost exclusively in the PPP strongholds. They were separate but together. It was purely a racist approach. AFC concentrated in the Indo-Guyanese area and APNU focused their efforts in the Afro-Guyanese areas.
That was how the AFC decided on their Presidential Candidate. They wanted an East Indian as their candidate because they want to be able to lead the Opposition campaign in these communities. This is what they will do in the coming election, but the separate but together will morph finally to one and the same – the AFC playing Granger’s poodle.
All Guyana knew that Walter Rodney and several other Guyanese who opposed the PNC were assassinated. Yet we are all in awe and shock with the revelations from the Rodney COI. Has anyone noticed that the AFC has said not a word about this sordid part of Guyana’s history? It is the past, yes, but it beckons our future too. Many of the people in charge of APNU today were the young Turks then and come out of the belly of dictatorship and repression. But the AFC cannot say anything, including Nagamoottoo who wrote extensively about the crimes of the PNC then. Now cat has cut his tongue because Granger wants him to be quiet.
When the PNCR at a press conference claimed that the sugar industry should be closed, Ramjattan and the AFC supported the proposal made by Tony Viera. They did not even know what the proposal was but APNU wanted them to blindly support replacing the sugar industry with aquaculture. Nagamoottoo has said plainly that the Chinese are not welcome as investors in Guyana because APNU expects them to say so. When Nagamoottoo wanted to be Speaker APNU told the AFC to put forward Trotman. Really, the AFC has been a loyal and malleable poodle to Granger and the AFC.
Since 2011, we have seen the truth – every time Granger and APNU call on the AFC to jump, they have done so. They opposed the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Bill when they admitted that they have no amendment to make and they have no problem with the bill itself. But they voted against it because that is what APNU wanted. They voted against Amaila because that is what APNU wanted. AFC joined APNU and voted against the One Lap Top Programme. They voted against more than $90B in the national budgets for 2012, 2013 and 2014 because that is what Granger wanted. They voted against programmes to help the Amerindian people because APNU said so. They voted against salaries for the staff of the President because that is what APNU wanted. The history is long and the truth is AFC is very comfortable playing the poodle of APNU. The poodle status of the AFC is unchanged whether they go to the 2015 elections as Separate but One or as One and the Same.
Dr. LESLIE RAMSAMMY

extracted from the Guyana Chronicle