Stabroek News put a jumbie lash pon the AFC and WPA

Nov 20, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – Here is what the Stabroek News (SN) wrote last Saturday about the AFC: “The Alliance for Change must also move to sweep aside its old leadership and find some political coherence and relevance.”
Juxtapose this with the AFC dossier which is to be presented to its congress next March for adoption. The document noted on page 14: “The present leadership cannot be replaced now.” Whoever wrote that dossier surely has no connection to the pulse of the nation.
The key word in the SN description is “old.” SN certainly cannot be referring to age. No one of the AFC’s hierarchy has reached 60 years or is around 58 or 59. SN has to be referring to the old political culture of that hierarchy. I welcome SN’s description of the AFC because my opinion that the AFC is essentially a dead organism is only found in the mainstream media.
I further welcome SN’s attention to the WPA. The newspaper wrote: “The Working People’s Alliance seems stranded in the 1980s in the composition of its leadership.” Again, I am alone in the publication of my opinion that the WPA is a fraud, a very ugly fraud in the political discourse of Guyana.
It is really an entity that consists of about three ragged, politically aging and politically unkempt individuals. It is a highly misleading statement to refer to the “leadership of the WPA.” The statement does not reflect reality. The WPA has no leadership. I will return to this topic below but let’s get back to the old pyramid of the AFC.
The present crop of leaders lacks even an ounce of credibility. But who are you going to replace them with when there is no structure any longer in the AFC? The present school of new faces in the AFC are creations of that outdated leadership thus when the pyramid tumbles those new faces will wither away. The outdated hierarchy is not going anywhere.
The AFC in March 2022 will dissolve its coalition with the PNC. That is explicitly stated in the dossier (please email me at fredkissoon@yahoon.com for a copy). The failed AFC bigwigs will then try the impossible – resurrect the AFC. But here is where the AFC becomes identical in biology to the WPA.
Dominic Gaskin is gone. There will no longer be the presence of Raphael Trotman. Mr. Trotman moves off in March next year after the congress for health and other reasons. David Patterson wanted to leave earlier this year and will do so next year. But if he stays on, the AFC becomes a three-person show like the WPA – Khemraj Ramjattan, Cathy Hughes and David Patterson.
This is what the WPA is – a three-person unit – Tacuma Ogunseye, Desmond Trotman and David Hinds. There used to be a fourth soul in the pot – Tabitha Sarabo-Halley – but she now has taken on a dual personality. She sits in the House as a PNC parliamentarian but she has formed her own political party. David Hinds is almost out of the WPA, having formed his organisation named Society for African Guyanese Empowerment.
It is misleading for the SN to refer to the WPA being stuck in the 1980s. The newspaper is referring to Clive Thomas and Rupert Roopnaraine. Both men are no longer part of the WPA. The SN failed to grasp the realities in Guyana. The AFC and the WPA are dead. What you will find the AFC doing after March 2022 is what the WPA has been doing for the past six years – just sending out press statements.
Why all the newspapers carry these WPA press releases is bewildering. Surely, there must be some physiological characteristics to an organisation before the media accepts what it writes in the name of “press releases.” For the newspapers to publish what the WPA calls “press releases” is to continue the deception that the organisation exists. Why not confine these submissions to the letter pages where they rightfully belong.
A press release organisation is what the AFC will become after March 2022. When the AFC leaves its covenant with the PNC, where will its constituencies come from? Certainly not the Indigenous communities. Certainly not from Indians. Why are African Guyanese going to gravitate to the AFC rather than the PNC?
A part of the SN’s quote needs repeating: “find some political coherence and relevance.” How are those two values to be realised? They have to come from real, living people. With the kind of leaders the AFC has and the hate people have for that political party, the best thing for the AFC to do is to buy a spot in Le Repentir.
(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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