Vice Chairman of the Alliance For Change, Moses Nagamootoo says that the party offers “young professionals with tremendous talent a real alternative, who are caught in this tweedle dee tweedle dum context of the PNC, PPP.”
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday, Nagamootoo said that the most recent member, former Guyana/West Indies cricketer Mahendra Nagamootoo joined the AFC because the party was focused on youth issues.
Nagamootoo noted that the former cricketer and other youths in the party were very vocal during a party caucus meeting that employment, job security, safety on the job and the societal issues have taken a back bench to “headline grabbers” like the no-confidence motion and the campaign for local government elections.
Nagamootoo stated that suicide and drug and alcohol abuse were some of the areas that youths have shown real concern about. He said that the AFC has seen the need to reach out to the grass roots and in further campaign work will heed the advice of its youth demographic.
He said that politicians were urged during the AFC’s caucus meeting to pay attention to the concerns raised by youths in the party such as by the former cricketer. He said that many feel that the AFC has the potential to offer an alternative to the constant feud between the PNC and the ruling PPP that goes back generations.
The party’s vice-chairman, who has been floated as the AFC’s next presidential candidate, noted that high rates of employment were spoken about during the caucus meeting but so was the level of underemployment. Nagamootoo said that the brain drain was still a real concern and that it would continue to debilitate Guyana’s development if it was not addressed sooner.
He said that the PPP’s inability to address the brain drain highlighted the vulnerability in the current regime and would allow for a new generation to see the need for a no-confidence motion to shake up the current government system.
Mahendra Nagamootoo is the nephew of the AFC’s vice-chairman. He played for both Guyana and the West Indies. He hails from Whim, Berbice.
