THE AFC HAS ITS OWN AMBITIONS

Jun 20, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The Alliance For Change (AFC) believes in rotation. No wonder they are going around in circles.
The AFC was formed around two leaders, Raphael Trotman and Khemraj Ramjattan. Trotman broke with the PNCR and along with expelled PPP member, Ramjattan, they formed the Alliance For Change. The duo of Ramjattan and Trotman came to symbolize a rejection of the old politics and provided the face of ethnic balance. Gender balance was added to the leadership in the form of Sheila Holder, but the appeal of the party rested on the leadership of Trotman and Ramjattan.
Raphael Trotman was chosen as the party’s Presidential candidate for the 2006 general elections even though in terms of political and professional experience, he was the junior to Khemraj Ramjattan. The party made it clear that next election Ramjattan would succeed Trotman as the party’s presidential candidate. This was the rotational plan.
It was not inspired by the experience of the Working People’s Alliance. The WPA never had a rotational leadership. Rodney was never the leader of the Working People’s Alliance. He was part of a collective leadership grouping.
The WPA rotated its parliamentary representative. But it persisted until 1997 with a model of collective leadership until the 1997 elections when it felt that the culture of the Guyanese people was one that was more comfortable with the identification of a single leader. The experience of the WPA therefore cannot be used to analyze the success or failures of this model.
If you ask the present WPA leaders about their leadership system, it is likely they will insist that decision-making is still based on collective leadership, but for election purposes, they prefer to identify a single candidate as representing the party.
Two developments are now causing waves within the Alliance For Change. The first is that pressure is being brought to bear on the party to bypass Khemraj Ramjattan as its Presidential candidate for next year‘s election.
The AFC has sought to allay the concerns over this by reasserting its commitment to rotation in leadership. However, it has left the door open – wide open – to overturning this commitment by indicating that the final verdict on this matter will have to be made by the membership. It is most likely, therefore, that Khemraj Ramjattan will not have his turn to be his party’s Presidential candidate since he is not likely to obtain the nod of the general membership.
The second major development concerns the formation of a coalition of opposition parties to contest next year’s elections. The results of the People’s Partnership in Trinidad and Tobago led to calls for a similar arrangement in Guyana.
The AFC’s leadership is however ambivalent on the question of a coalition. The party was formed to hold the balance of power between the two titans, the PNCR and the PPP/C. It contested the 2006 elections with the hope of winning, but the Americans were more interested in denying the PPP a majority, thereby forcing it to seek political compromise with the other opposition parties.
The AFC it was hoped would win enough votes to hold this balance of power. The AFC did well, far better than the Americans expected, but it was the poor showing of the PNCR that put a spoke in the plan to deny the PPP/C a majority.
The showing of the PNCR and its continued political decline in the eyes of the AFC no doubt has stirred hopes that the AFC could become the next main opposition party. The AFC has not concealed this ambition.
However, the outcome of the elections in Trinidad and Tobago has revived hopes of a Big Tent coalition to fight the PPP/C in next year’s elections. When the issue of a partnership of opposition parties was raised, the AFC was non-committal, with one leader indicating that he would like this matter to be put to the people.
There is, however, a major obstacle to the AFC’s participation in any all-opposition coalition. The AFC was formed as an alternative to the PNCR and the PPP. It is therefore against its nature for it to be part of any alliance with the PNCR. It cannot claim to represent an alternative to a party when it joins with that party in an alliance.
The AFC, therefore, will have to make a serious transition in its political orientation if it is to become part of any Big Tent coalition. It will have to move from being a party seeking to hold the balance of power in a PNCR and PPP-dominated parliament to becoming a minority player in an all-opposition alliance.
The tiff over rotation of its presidential candidates, the lukewarm reception towards an election coalition, its original ambition as holding the balance of power, and its foreseeable claim to become the next main opposition, all stand in the way of the AFC taking a secondary position in any Big Tent coalition.

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