It’s up to former PPP/C minister Moses Nagamootoo to decide whether he will accept an offer that has been on the table since 2006 to join the Alliance For Change (AFC), the AFC’s leader Raphael Trotman said.
“It is for him to decide where he wants to stand,” Trotman told Stabroek News yesterday, saying he believes Nagamooto can contribute to policy and social development in Guyana as the party heads into the 2011 elections.
Earlier this week, former health minister in the PNC government Dr Richard Van West-Charles and former PPP Central Committee member Rajendra Bissessar both endorsed the AFC at a press briefing at the party’s headquarters and Trotman indicated that Nagamootoo was in talks with the AFC and said that he would be guaranteed a “high place” should he accept the party’s proposal.
Trotman told Stabroek News yesterday that since 2006 and after, the AFC had indicated to Nagamootoo that there was a place in an AFC government for him. Trotman said the AFC is not asking Nagamootoo “to give up his PPPness” saying that he is being approached because of who he is and what he can bring to the party. Trotman indicated that party had been in discussions with Nagamootoo but declined to provide specifics about the discussions. The AFC leader suggested that the former information minister could play a key role in bridging the racial divide in the country and in bringing a sense of continuity. Trotman said it is clear that currently Nagamootoo is not in favourable standing within the PPP.
Several efforts by this newspaper over the past few days to contact Nagamootoo were unsuccessful.
Nagamootoo has been a senior member of the PPP since 1976 when he became a member of the party’s Central Committee. He was subsequently elevated to the Executive Committee in 1978, where he served continuously until 2005. He was one of the highest vote getters in the party’s 2008 Congress but was not selected to the party’s Executive Committee. Nagamooto, who has been a member of the PPP since 1961, had indicated an interest in becoming the PPP’s presidential candidate but withdrew from the race after his call for the wider membership of the party to have a say in this process was ignored.
At the press briefing earlier this week Bissessar explained that he has been encouraging his friend Nagamootoo to join him in supporting the AFC. Bissessar said he was privy to the fact that Nagamootoo will not be on the PPP/C slate at this year’s elections and he was almost certain that he would join the opposition party.
“I want to believe that Mister Nagamootoo should and I think he may be considering that option but I cannot be definitive,” said Bissessar.
