“Charran is not a Hero. Charran is a villain…from the evidence we are now getting. Everybody out there must understand that,” Ramjattan declared on state television last Sunday

Appearing on the political talk show Context, the Chairman of the Alliance for Change (AFC) told host Enrico Woolford that the former Party member “never complained” while in government but is now claiming a conscience vote.     

‘He always criticized the PPP on the Radio programme in Berbice which is why we were attracted to him… all of a sudden everything upturned…It is obvious he was compromised … He sold his car,” the Minister noted adding that government could be “beaten” for not paying attention to the signs but “now more information is coming out that this fella was compromised financially which is why he never wanted to abstain from a vote.”

Challenged by Woolford  to present some sort of evidence rather than just make an allegation Ramjattan maintained that evidence exists since Persaud “has spoken to people.”

“It is clearly a case where he is compromised and obviously those who moved the motion, or at least one person who moved the motion, knew about this. They knew that they had Charrandas in the bag. Now that is not the kind of democratic process we want for this country. You had to know you had somebody in the bag,” Ramjattan claimed.

When Woolford pointed out that Government should’ve also known that one of its members was compromised Ramjattan stressed that they did not know even though they spoke to each member about whom they received information.

“This thing was organised beautifully. All that will come out of the investigation going on. We are going to benefit from it because Guyanese don’t want that kind of politics in Guyana anymore,” Ramjattan noted referencing the fact that businessman Peter Ramsaroop was present and ready to offer Persaud security.

He explained that following the vote he recognized that “if Charrandas an Indian who crossed over in such a manner was harmed it would lead to civil strife (and so) offered security…but then you have Ramsaroop saying … `look use our security.’”

Ramjattan stressed that the entire operation was suspicious and government is “going to go very far and deep into it.”

“Those who would’ve done that will pay the penalty. We’ve already been doing investigations with the senior members of the government. Very valid investigations, you might want to say we are politically motivated, we are not. The President, the Prime Minister, the entire Cabinet want genuine political practice and what we saw there is absolutely ludicrous and illegitimate,” he stressed.

During the one hour show Ramjattan also expressed his support for government’s position that the threshold to constitute a no confidence motion was not reached.

“The number of persons who would constitute that threshold is 34 not 33,” he said acknowledging that there initially was the thought that it was 33.

“After being blindsided by the immoral act of Charrandas Persaud we sought some legal advice. We also went back to the text of the constitution, we also go a number of authorities that compute this special arrangement that can bring down a government and recognized it is half the number of elected members plus one,” the lawyer explained.