As the general elections draw near, and the speculation surrounding the choice by the PPP’s of its presidential candidate is over, attention is now focused on the AFC’s choice of its prime ministerial candidate. The AFC apparently anticipates that there will be another coalition with APNU and that it will be offered the opportunity to choose the prime ministerial candidate. But no public indication has been forthcoming about the renewal of the coalition.
The Cummingsburg Accord, which is the foundation document for the coalition, has expired and the parties went their separate ways for the local government elections. Even if there is another coalition, the prime ministerial candidate may well come from APNU. Amna Ally and Ronald Bulkan are available. APNU may well consider that the performance of the AFC at the local government elections, obtaining only four percent of the votes, does not qualify it for the prime ministerial slot. It could propose that the AFC now only deserves ministerial seats and far less than the 40% agreed to in the Cummingsburg Accord.
Despite this unsettled situation, it appears that the AFC assumes that there will be a coalition and that the AFC will be asked to nominate the prime ministerial candidate. There now appears to be a raging battle in full swing in the AFC surrounding the selection of one of its leaders to be presented to APNU as the coalition’s prime ministerial candidate for a new APNU+AFC coalition. It is expected that the selection will be made at the AFC’s upcoming conference and that the two main candidates are current Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan. While Ramjattan is a founder member of the AFC, a former leader and its current chair, Nagamootoo is a relative newcomer, who abandoned his 50 years in the PPP in 2010 to seek greener pastures in the AFC, when it became clear that he was not going to be the PPP’s presidential candidate. He was catapulted to a leading position in the AFC.
