Will the AFC meet the same fate as the WPA?

DEAR EDITOR,
Rising tensions between the PNC and WPA – fuelled by the revelations at the Rodney Commission of Inquiry (RCOI) – are very unlikely to anymore welcome the WPA’s Dr Rupert Roopnaraine as APNU’s knockout-winning Prime Minister.  Expecting diehard PNC loyalists to continue embracing the WPA as trustworthy within APNU’s bosom has already started acrimonious contentiousness.

With the AFC’s Mr. Moses Nagamootoo leading the attack to oust the PPP/C minority government by
a no-confidence motion, the joint opposition  will certainly win. Would APNU support the AFC motion in hopes for a coalition before the inevitable general elections?

The AFC is certainly a better alternative than the skeleton WPA with no support. But historically, all Guyana’s third parties faded away over time.  Since both the United Force (UF) and WPA have gone impotent due to permanent election dysfunction, the big question is whether the AFC will survive a snap election as the realistic representation of our races to avoid Guyana being ruled by repetitive, rhythmic, rotating red roosters on a rickety raft rolling to the rapids.

What is certain is the PNC leadership will weigh the paramountcy of internal party unity as more preferable than keeping the WPA. Debunking their loyalists’ legitimate suspicions and fears about the WPA brings no benefits at all, but opens the party to more public ridicule. It definitely does more harm than good. What the WPA brings to the coalition is already very dubious anyway. It was PNC founder-leader Mr. Forbes Burnham who adamantly rejected any compromises with that group.

What can now be the unknown secret deal substantially superior to Solomon’s wisdom to have actually catapulted them into enshrined prominence, in the first place, within APNU?  The PNC leadership cannot honestly give reassurances or disprove that the WPA is without strategic location in APNU to execute revenge for the brutal assassination of its leader. It’s probably a major problem better left unanswered with the WPA’s own contradictions finally on course to strangle them.

With all the gory conspiracy details to kill Dr Rodney and other Guyanese now confirmed public knowledge, who gains is not the PNC.
Much depends on whether the WPA is pushed overboard or not. Dr Roopnaraine may somehow choose to restore his own honour. Restoring anything left of whatever makes him “Indian” cannot hurt.

Since his racial and cultural origins are the principal pivotal reasons why he is paraded by both the Afrocentric WPA and APNU he may start to reestablish and exonerate himself culturally. With the PNC/APNU prominently displaying him, how important are both their priorities in seeking electoral redemption from the past?  The PNC refuses to apologise for transgressions during its 28-year rule.

But like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the WPA may still be reborn again to reenter the conclave of hallelujah scientific socialists lately come awake, yonder.  While it is true that those within the WPA are without any credible grassroots support, they must be credited for outdoing themselves.
In comparison to our next door island neighbour, that country’s third party development is at Guyana’s UF coalition stage. The Trinidad Guardian reported on 6-22-14 that the breakaway group from the Indian-based UNC which became the Congress of the People (COP) “will elect its leader (on June 29) whose task will be to redefine the party and take it into the next general election. The result would determine if COP stays where it is, within the (current) People’s Partnership (PP) government or if it will stand alone or join one or more political groups. The flag bearer for maintaining the status quo is the current leader, Mr. Prakash Ramadhar….”

The Guardian reported that “when he led the party to the humiliating defeat in the 2013 local government election, members of his executive, including his brother, asked for his resignation. They accused him of failing to stand up for COP within the PP coalition and demanded that the party leave the Government.”

Others in contest for the COP leadership against Mr. Ramadhar are Culture Minister Dr Lincoln Douglas and Mr. Rufus Foster.  Noteworthy is the affinity which kept the COP leadership close to the “parent UNC” resulting in a coalition government.

The AFC instead prefers permanent war with the PPP/C while the PNC has expeditiously regrouped into APNU. They recouped most of the black votes in 2011 which the AFC’s Raphael Trotman originally took away in 2006.
The COP chairwoman has been endorsed by the COP’s party founder-leader and current Foreign Minister, Mr. Winston Dookeran, as someone who “can’t be bought….  Mr. Dookeran acknowledged that COP had lost ground. “Today we are a mere shadow of the expectation and the energy that people had placed in us,” he added.  Guyana’s AFC so far has made no admission of lost support.

Trinidad’s former finance minister Mr. Selby Wilson also endorsed Mrs. Seepersad-Bachan. He said the COP party had lost the reputation for knowing right from wrong. “We need to do something different and change leadership,” he added.

How similar or different are the problems which face Guyana’s WPA or the AFC?  All the outdated leadership still rule the roost since their formation, with no democratic changes like in Trinidad.  Both promise the moon and the stars, but are in no position to deliver anything to Guyanese. Both suffer from widespread public perceptions that they do not know right from wrong to ignore approving the Anti-Money Laundering Bill which hurts all Guyanese. Both have so far failed to demand racial balancing of the armed forces and civil service, funded by taxpayers’ revenue.

Whatever remains of their subsidiary faded identities after being overshadowed by PNC/APNU agenda domination is their fault completely, despite their advertised good intentions.  It has completely rendered both parties’ racial rotating leadership as most inefficient and without hope of resolving Guyana’s many problems. Come the snap elections are Guyanese likely to remain in the same quagmire, regardless who wins?
Sultan Mohamed