AFC executive Nigel Hughes yesterday dismissed suggestions that the party will form alliances with other parties should it not win the upcoming elections.
Hughes told a news conference that alliances would have to be formed before the elections to make them effective. He added that post-election alliances were not even discussed by the AFC, since the party will allow the people of Guyana to voice concerns about any such possibility before making a decision.
He also emphasised the party’s belief in the need for the repeal of the executive president’s immunity from facing charges for breaking the law. He said the AFC would put measures in place so that a president would be made answerable, with a statue of limitation that would extend beyond their time in office.
Hughes said that the AFC would also seek to reduce the 72-hour period during which a person could be held in police custody without being charged, and that judicial measures would be put in place so persons may seek redress through the courts.
Meanwhile, the AFC is also promising that if elected into government, it would reenact legislation to allow Guyanese in the Diaspora to vote at polls.
AFC’s Dr. Rohan Somar stated that the party, after hearing the views of thousands of Guyanese in the Diaspora who want to vote from their respective resident countries, would lobby in parliament to implement the needed legislation. He added that many stated that they feel that they should be given the right to have a say in Guyana’s politics because they want to be able to see that their relatives here can take care of themselves and family and not depend on “remittances or one or two barrels sent” for basic survival. Overseas voting, before it was abolished in 1985, was used as a tool in rigging elections.
In addition, Somar stated that the AFC did not feel enough was being done by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to educate voters on actual polling day processes.”We do not feel that there is real voter education being done,” he said. He noted that “simple measures can be put in place, for example having persons go door to door not only explaining the importance of voting but how to identify discrepancies at their polling station.” GECOM, he said, was the “umpire of the elections” and as a result it should exhaust all voter education measures as a means to ensure the smooth running of the November 28 elections.
A representative of the youth arm of the AFC also gave updates on what that department was doing as the countdown to the elections continues.
