Region 6 Councillor charges… AFC betrays Berbicians by joining with APNU –Vice-Presidential posts contra Dr Jagan’s ideals

THE Alliance for Change (AFC) has betrayed their supporters through one of their worst strategic blunders in their short lifespan by merging with A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), according to Region 6 Councillor, Haseef Yusuf.

In a public missive yesterday, Yusuf accused the AFC of repeatedly lying to the people of Berbice that supported it at the last election.

“I have written volumes about the lies and deceit,” he said, “but for the first time, many Berbicians who have supported the AFC in the past have come out openly and condemned the coalition between the AFC and APNU, and are crying betrayal…Sugar workers are so angry that they have become paranoid.”
Yusuf, in his missive, reported that ever since the prorogation of Parliament in November last, AFC presenters such as Dr Veerasammy Ramayya; Party Leader Khemraj Ramjattan; Mark Ross and Charrandass Persaud, among others, have been vociferously denying the coalition talks between APNU and AFC, “But the truth is now in the open.”

On Saturday last, according to Yusuf, “Dr Ramayya was vociferously attacked by callers into the AFC programme on DTV, who called him a pathological liar and one who betrayed the trust of AFC supporters in Berbice.”
He said that Dr Ramayya had on numerous occasions made claims that if the AFC should ever coalesce with APNU, he was going to resign from the AFC and from politics.
“The callers asked him why he was still on the programme, and he tried his best to divert from the questions,” Yusuf said, adding: “The leader-or-nothing stance has left the AFC with just nothing. The AFC support in Berbice is now dead, and the AFC has become dead meat…This is the only truth Ramjattan has uttered in recent times… Mr (Sixtus) Edwards, the ex-General Secretary of the AFC has told me this a long time ago.”
Yusuf, in weighing in on the recently announced coalition, said, “I was surprised by the fact that the coalition will give birth to three Vice-Presidents. If I could recall (Moses), Nagamootoo always spoke about Dr Jagan wanting a lean and clean government, and cannot fathom the leanness of three Vice-Presidents in this context.”
According to Yusuf, the coalition seems bent on following the Forbes Burnham principle, since, from the inception, Vice-Presidents are a product of the PNC era.
“PPP members who defected were given Vice-Presidential positions to reward them,” Yusuf said, adding: “The same modus operandi is used to reward defectors from other parties.”
Asking of no one in particular, “Is this is a co-incidence or a premonition of what is to come?” Yusuf went on to say, “I have heard, with some amusement, that the President will delegate additional powers to the Prime Minister under the Accord; I do hope that Moses is aware that such delegation cannot work as long as it is in direct contravention of the Constitution; the Constitution clearly sets out the duties and responsibilities of the Prime Minister, and that is the Supreme Law of the land.”