Oh, how we love to criticize the PPP!

May 31, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There was drama inside the AFC head office on Saturday after the election for headship of the Region Four branch of the AFC and headship of the Georgetown arm of the AFC. It looks like the trouble will find its way right up to the AFC leadership.
That the AFC has imploded is a sight that even the blind can see in Guyana. What took place on Saturday are the last rites being read not by the priests, pundits and imams but by the remaining clowns in the circus.
Amar Chinkhan won the chairmanship of Region Four and Region Five observer, Abel Seetaram, told this columnist that he will be submitting a complaint against Michael Leonard for utterance of an unacceptable remark made against Chinkhan’s victory.
Seetaram said such an attitude has no place in the AFC. I contacted Chinkhan who said he did not hear Leonard’s remark but he was told about it and one member was so upset that he wanted to confront Leonard on the imbroglio but he, Chinkhan, restrained him.
The Leonard versus Chinkhan saga is a symptom of the vicious struggle taking place between Khemraj Ramjattan and Moses Nagamooto to win the nomination for the Prime Ministerial slot at the upcoming congress of the AFC, on June 15 at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre.
I could see from my window the delegates as they walk into the building. I will use my binoculars to examine the countenance of the delegates because the war is going to be fiercely fought. Nominations close tomorrow and already both Ramjattan and Nagamootoo have been nominated for the post of prime minister for the upcoming general election.
Leonard works in Nagamootoo’s office where together with another of Nagamootoo’s employee, Juretha Fernandes, they are leading the campaign for Nagamootoo under the guidance of Raphael Trotman. One can say the Chinkhan victory last Saturday is a huge advantage for Ramjattan because Chinkhan as Region Four chairman will have to vet the delegates for June 15.
Region Four sends 70 delegates to the AFC congress. There is a growing fear that the delegate system will be manipulated to favour Nagamootoo but with a Ramjattan supporter, Chinkhan, in charge of Region Four, Nagamootoo’s soldiers have to go back to the drawing board.
On Saturday, too, there was an election for Georgetown chairman for the AFC. Sherod Duncan beat Michael Leonard. It may have been fine with the AFC to elect Duncan but PPP supporters are going to be further galvanized with the Duncan scenario. Duncan was dismissed by the Chronicle board for ugly administrative mistakes. His sins were far from banal or ordinary.
Yet this man is the chairman of the Georgetown branch of the AFC. One can conclude that his awful governance at the Chronicle was not taken into consideration when the AFC members voted for him. Yet if you rewind the tape before 2015, these same members, this same AFC, this same country denounced the PPP for every peccadillo, every mistake, every shortcoming.
There is no question in my mind that if the PPP was in power and a mandarin from Freedom House was dismissed from one of the ministries and was subsequently elected to head one of the main branches of the PPP, the country would have been reverberating with condemnations. We love to criticize the PPP but that love has a different side of the coin. We hate to look at ourselves in the mirror. We can’t. Because if and when we do, we will see hypocritical visages.
No sanction was put on Volda Lawrence for echoing a nastiness whether it was said in private. The fact is it became public. Simona Broomes moves from one troubled situation to another. Forget the New Thriving incident. She did a video in Parliament. You can view the video from different perspective.
You can say that you agree with its questionable content. And you will be on safe ground because it is your opinion. But she recorded it inside the hallowed chambers of Parliament.
Make no mistake. If a PPP parliamentarian, when the PPP was in power, had done such a video in the National Assembly, the anti-PPP voices would have echoed far and wide in Guyana. No doubt the AFC will put up Sherod for inclusion on the APNU+AFC election list.
Captain Clean as he was fondly called before the mask dropped from his face, will be perambulating Georgetown, saying, “vote for me.” Who is Sherod’s counterpart in the PPP? Can I guess a few names – “KIllamaan,” Satyra “Gyaal.” Is Sherod fit and proper? The answer is the AFC thinks so.

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