Alliance for Change (AFC) member Imran Khan on Saturday disclosed that he is yet to file an official complaint with the party regarding alleged threats he and his wife have received and is waiting for the appropriate time to do so.
“I have my reasons [for not doing so] which I would not disclose at this point in time,” he told reporters as he was about to enter the compound of St. Paul’s Retreat Centre, where the AFC was holding its biennial National Executive Conference.
On Thursday Khan, a then Executive Member claimed in a statement which was shared on Facebook, that he and his wife had been threatened by a “thug” associated with a senior party official. He did not name the official or the person he identified as being responsible for the threats.
Told that some view his statement as unnecessary, he responded, “I disagree with that. I believe I gave it good thought and that I made the statement on the basis that I think it was absolutely necessary.”
Asked if it would not have been more appropriate to deal with the leadership first before going public, he said “I had a number of options and I chose the option that I thought was most appropriate”.
Khan said that during the time of the PPP/C government, when he lived and worked in Antigua and was engaged in political activism against the said government, it was reported to him that a former PPP/C president had vowed that as long as he was in charge he would never work in Guyana again.
“Now, a well-known hooligan, thug and convicted felon who is being (coddled), sheltered and protected by a very senior executive of my own political party has threatened me and my wife that when his benefactor attains a certain political office my wife and I will be ‘chased back to Antigua,’” he further claimed.
Khan said the senior party executive is fuelling this “thug and his co-conspirators with alcohol and political promises” and that they have been camping outside the party headquarters on a daily basis and “abuse and intimidate persons who are considered not to be supportive of their cause.”
Further, he claimed that another “political thug,” who is a known supporter of the senior official, has been actively engaged in attempting to have his name removed from the delegates’ list and has vowed that he will leave no stone unturned until he is successful. So far he has not been successful, Khan said, before warning that he shall not be prevented from fulfilling his duties as a delegate at the conference on Saturday.
His statement signaled an intense internal rivalry and it comes on the heels of several posts he made on Facebook after his wife, Tammy’ s name was allegedly removed from the party’s delegates’ list on Nomination Day. Tammy was late Saturday afternoon elected as Chair of Women for Change (WFC), the women’s arm of AFC.
Asked about Khan’s statement, Cathy Hughes, the party spokesperson, who was later elected Vice Chairperson, told reporters that the entire thing was been blown totally out of proportion. “Elections time is `silly season’, they say and we see that all the time. I’m extremely disappointed because an individual making a totally inaccurate and unnecessary and uncalled for statement is not a reflection of the Alliance for Change and it is something I feel could have been dealt with very, very quietly.”
Newly elected leader and the proposed prime ministerial candidate Khemraj Ramjattan told reporters at the end of the conference that he had not addressed the issue with Khan.
David Patterson, who was unanimously appointed General Secretary informed that the matter was not raised during the conference. “That didn’t make the floor at all,” he said noting that it was claimed that persons were not on the delegates list but no such issue arose at the conference.
