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PNC/AFC charade is the most comical, political circus in Guyanese history

Nov 02, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Let’s go stage by stage then you decide if the dialogue between the PNC and the AFC on the prime ministerial candidate is not a silly merry go round that makes both parties look idiotic in the eyes of the world.
Stage 1- In June, the AFC accepted a motion that declared Ramjattan as the AFC’s selectee for the PM slot in the 2020 election. S2- the PNC didn’t like that. As a reaction, Joe Harmon at a Bartica rally declared that Nagamootoo was royalty. S3- the President refused to comment on the identification of a name for the PM slot.
He said the renewal of the Cummingsburg Accord has three stages – one is acceptance of core principles which has been completed, then stage two on policies and programmes will begin shortly and then names for positions will be announced after stage two is completed.
S4- the President in an interview said that he reserves the right to choose his running mate and he will not accept a name being forced on him. He opined that all the parties that make up the APNU/AFC formation should be allowed to identify a choice. S5 – the AFC two Thursdays ago hosted a press conference to ventilate one issue only – the refusal of APNU in the dialogue to renew the Cummingsburg Accord to accept Ramjattan as the PM candidate for 2020.
S6 – At that Thursday press conference the AFC issued a fait accompli or an ultimatum to the PNC – the AFC will not accept a rejection of Khemraj Ramjattan as the PM candidate. The gauntlet was thrown down by the AFC. The semantics were pellucid – Khemraj Ramjattan is the AFC’s choice to run with Granger, the Cummingsburg Accord stipulates the PM comes from the AFC and there will be no compromise on that demand.
S7 – the AFC’s public criticism of APNU’s reluctance to accept Ramjattan resulted in the talks moving out from the teams representing the PNC and AFC and into the realm of the leader himself of the PNC and the leader himself of the AFC. S8 – the talks between the two leaders were completed. S9 – no announcement if Granger has accepted Ramjattan as PM candidate, no announcement from Ramjattan if Granger has rejected him or needs more time to consider that seminal issue. S10 – the talks between the teams have resumed.
So here are the ten stages then of the situation between the PNC and AFC over the AFC’s insistence that it wants Ramjattan to be Granger’s running mate. We can add stage 11- nothing but idiocy now characterized the question of the Ramjattan candidacy.
What analysis to put to those 10 stages? If the two teams couldn’t agree on Ramjattan and so it climaxed a face-to-face between two leaders for them to decide, then a decision had to be made there and then. How can you send the two teams back to negotiate when one side is insisting on Ramjattan. The other side, which is the PNC, cannot make a decision without its leader’s acceptance.
The AFC bitterly complained at its Thursday, October 17 press conference that the PNC was using delay tactics so it called out the PNC. The talks then moved to the two leaders themselves. If there wasn’t a decision on Ramjattan when these two gentlemen met then why is the AFC going back into dialogue with the PNC on the Ramjattan factor when that should have been settled between the two gentlemen?
If in the coming days, there is an announcement that Ramjattan is the anointed one, then that had to come from Granger when he met Ramjattan last Thursday. So why not make the declaration after the two leaders would have met? Why leave it to the two teams when the entire world would have known that Granger gave the final nod when he met Ramjattan Thursday?
Does that make any sense? Let us see if we can make sense of it. So the PNC and the AFC in the coming days will resume the dialogue on which there has to be an answer to the AFC’s demand that Ramjattan be accepted. What item is there to discuss on the agenda before the number one item – the Ramjattan PM slot?
It means that as soon as the two sides meet, after the end of the negotiation for that first meeting, there has to be a definitive statement on the Ramjattan candidacy because the AFC has quarreled bitterly that no decision is forthcoming hence the recourse to the two leaders. If after the first meeting of the resumed talks there is no announcement on Ramjattan, then the circus will go on forever.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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