Dear Editor,
The AFC is on the national radar again this time struggling to retain the Prime Ministerial slot under the leadership of Khemraj Ramjattan. In the past this position was axiomatic. Not anymore and the longer we wait for that position to be filled it is most likely it will not go to the AFC. Meanwhile, the “prudent” process in concluding the PM position has provided some vital oxygen to the “dead meat” status of the AFC. It is now a living dead, political hospice, reluctant to “surrender.” I predict that AFC will become a quarrelling symbolic spectator. There is, however, one observation that is coterminous with a diverse political working environment, the challenge of achieving collegiality. David Granger is not as comfortable working with Ramjattan as he is with Moses Nagamootoo. I say this using the following. If I am allowed to tweet the adage that a picture worth a thousand words to a picture says a thousand words then the picture in the dailies of Ramjattan taking the oath of office before David Granger last week to perform the functions of Moses Nagamootoo revealed two men, not at ease with each other. When the good Minister Ramjattan took the oath there was a stiffness in him that questioned his rambunctious and rambling public demeanour of an independent thinker.
The routine expectation of oath-taking aside, there is something sad about that picture, an unadulterated message which perhaps has escaped even most dedicated viewers. There is a level of indoctrination by his leader, PNC style, like what happened to Nagamootoo, perhaps without Ramjattan realizing it. After more than forty years of practically disparaging the PNC and its founding members, Nagamootoo within one year of joining with APNU was seen on the front page of the state-managed Chronicle holding hands with Granger and paying homage to the late Forbes Burnham in the Botanical Garden. Of course, Nagamootoo has the prerogative to do as he pleases but the question is, would Ramjattan be willing to pay undistracted and sincere attention to PNC historical events, one core value of APNU. This is what concerns Granger, the flexibility of Ramjattan. Charrandass declared, with ambivalent pride, that he did not join the AFC to grant Hamilton Green a hefty pension package, hence one reason for voting against his government. Since the successful passage of the no-confidence motion, a whole new level of scrutiny and surveillance has been directed to the Berbice parliamentary faction of the AFC within APNU. To its credit, there is an ounce of pride left in the AFC insofar as not embracing, emulating and glorifying dubious PNC past events. Nonethe-less, any sense of independent thinking within the coalition has cradled and cribbed the ambitions of AFC to be anything else but dependent. The advance towards independence in terms of holding and carrying out mandated responsibilities within APNU has paradoxically been checked by its muzzled status for the past four and a half years. I predict that the PM position will not go to Ramjattan or there might be even two PM positions, one for APNU and another for AFC.
Yours faithfully,
Lomarsh Roopnarine
