Following a meeting yesterday between President David Granger and Alliance For Change (AFC) Leader Khemraj Ramjattan, proposals were crafted to deal with a complaint by the AFC that it has been “shortchanged” in allocation of seats won by the governing APNU+AFC coalition at the recent local government polls.
“A meeting did take place. We are supposed to release something to the press. The Prime Minister [Moses Nagamootoo] and [Social Cohesion Minister] Amna Ally [are] supposed to be working on it,” Ramjattan told Stabroek News when contacted yesterday.
Up to press time, no correspondence was received from the coalition pertaining to the discussion between the President and Ramjattan or the interface between Ally and Nagamootoo.
Stabroek News understands that Ally yesterday met with elected councillors of the Georgetown municipality at Congress Place as they were given a “walk through” of their duties at City Hall.
Contacted last evening by this newspaper, a relative of Ally said that she was not feeling well and had retired for the day. The relative asked if Ally could be contacted today instead.
Granger had said on Monday that he would meet Ramjattan after reading of the party’s concerns over the allocation of seats.
“I have not been spoken to by the AFC. I am aware of what was published in the papers, that’s all, and I intend to meet with the leader of the AFC, as early as possible, to discuss his concerns. On the part of the coalition, in my view, we have not breached any understandings or protocols, so I am not sure what the basis of the comments are. Mr. Ramjattan has not actually expressed a view,” Granger had told Stabroek News.
While the two leaders met, preparations were underway for yesterday afternoon’s meeting of the already selected councilors.
One AFC source said that since yesterday’s meeting would have been taking place after the coalition’s list of candidates was already submitted to the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom), it was indeed like “putting the cart before the horse” because the selected candidates could only be removed if they resigned or died.
“That is exactly it when someone said putting the cart before the horse. Tell me, though, as much as our members have legitimate concerns, is it right to a person, to submit their name then call them later to ask them to resign and they would have done nothing wrong? The mistakes were not made by the candidates…,” the source asserted.
At a meeting held on Sunday afternoon, AFC members raised concerns with party leaders that they had been “shortchanged” and “unfairly treated” in the allocation of seats in municipalities that the coalition won at the March 18 polls.
One AFC official had said that of the 25 seats won by the coalition for the Georgetown city council, the AFC was only given three seats–by virtue of First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) wins and zero of the 11 Proportional Repre-sentation (PR) seats. Eleven APNU candidates won FPTP seats. This means that APNU will control 22 of the 30 seats on the council.
The three AFC candidates who won their constituencies are Sherod Duncan of Constituency 14, Carlyle Goring of Constituency 2 and Lionel Jaikarran of Constituency 1.
“In Georgetown, it is worse but this is throughout the country; APNU railroad the process,” an incensed AFC official had told Stabroek News on Sunday.
“The party’s leaders were warned not to enter local government elections without an agreement on how the outcome would be dealt with. The Cummings-burg Accord never covered local government elections, the same way it didn’t cover junior ministers and a whole host of other things… so there should have been an agreement in place,” the official had added.
