Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo yesterday said that he will not be contesting for any of the top Alliance For Change (AFC) posts at the party’s National Conference being held today, while declaring that he wanted to make way for a new generation of leaders.
Nagamootoo, according to a press release issued by the AFC on Wednesday, was nominated for the posts of Leader, Chairman and Vice-Chairman. The party gave no indication on that occasion that he had declined the nominations.
“I had indicated to the leadership of the AFC … two weeks ago that I would not accept running for the position of Leader, Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer… what you call the leadership posts but I will be available to continue serving the party in its 12-member Executive Committee if I am nominated,” he told Stabroek News at the Public Buildings, shortly after the launch of the United Nations multi-country Sustainable Development Framework in the Caribbean 2017-2021.
Nagamootoo stressed that the leadership knows what his position on the matter is. “I have been in politics now for many, many years and for 52 of those years I have been in…posts in party politics,” he said, before adding that he felt that it is time he transitions himself to look into broader national interests under his portfolio as Prime Minister in the remaining period of the APNU+AFC government’s current term.
“So, the long and short of that is I have already indicated in the leadership that I am not contesting for party posts…but I am available to serve and to give my experience to the party,” he said.
He added that he has been nominated for the National Executive Committee, which has twelve spots available. “I have been nominated to be among the twelve. So I am prepared to give my continued service to the party because I do not want a situation where people would say that Nagamootoo, having become Prime Minister, he abandons the party. No, I want to help this party but I also want it to transition into a party with new blood and if I can help to be the guru in that process I certainly will,” he said.
Later, in a statement released by AFC PR Committee member Imran Khan, Nagamootoo said that it is unfortunate that what he had said was “misinterpreted as my complete withdrawal from the AFC’s leadership. I am not quitting the AFC. I am just shedding party leadership titles and status.”
“I want to say this: I am fully involved in the AFC. I want to see the party grow and become stronger. I want the party to reform and broaden its structure to bring on board the young generation of fighters, the so-called “Second Eleven” as we gear for 2020,” he said.
He noted that he served in leadership positions in the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) since 1976 and since his resignation from that party he became the Vice Chairman of the AFC from 2012.
“I thank the party members who have nominated me but wish to assure them of my continued service. The AFC holds a strategic place in the governance of Guyana. It ought to be credited with
making history when it sought a strategic parliamentary alliance with the APNU, tabled a motion of no-confidence in the then corrupt government, and brokered the APNU+AFC Coalition that won the 2015 elections,” he said, while adding that the leaders deserve commendation for those heroic and strategic moves and for working every day to keep the coalition government stable and strong, and changing Guyana for the better.
When asked by Stabroek News, Nagamootoo declined to say whether there is a candidate that he is backing for leadership. “I wouldn’t say that….the outcome I want is that the leadership should be united and they should concentrate more on, not the individual contests but how whatever happens, strengthens the party,” he said.
Incumbent leader Khemraj Ramjattan has been nominated and is going ahead to contest for a third term. Some observers have said that he should not.
Asked for his opinion on a candidate contesting for a third term as leader, Nagamootoo responded, “I wouldn’t give an opinion on that. It’s a matter for the party members to decide how they interpret the situation and how they would react to that situation.”
With Nagamootoo declining the leadership position, Ramjattan and fellow co-founder Raphael Trotman are the remaining nominees.
Confident
Meanwhile, Ramjattan told reporters on Thursday that he is confident that he will be elected leader again and said that he sees nothing wrong with him running for office a third time.
He made the comments shortly after the opening ceremony of the Police Officers’ Annual Conference had concluded. “Oh yeah, I did all right at the Region Four nomination. I won Trotman and I think I am getting nominations from all the various regions,” he said when asked if he was confident that he will win the leadership post again.
At the time reporters spoke with Ramjattan it was not known that Nagamootoo had pulled out of the race. Ramjattan was asked if it worried him that Nagamotoo was the PM but not the leader of his party. “No, it is not a worry necessarily.
I was leader of the party and he was the Prime Minister. When I was chairman, the presidential candidate was Raphael…A lot is being played up on this thing and I hope that people understand the true liberal democratic tradition of the Alliance For Change,” he said while noting that when this tradition was formulated it was deliberately done that way.
“Yes with change of leadership being a necessity but not to the exclusion of those who might want to run or who might be nominated….If we were to exclude …it will necessarily mean that Trevor Williams will have to go, the General Secretary will have to go, myself will have to go, the Vice-Chairman will have to go, Michael Carrington will have to go, Cathy Hughes will have to go,” he said.
Ramjattan told reporters that people must be allowed to run for a third term if it is a “necessity of the situation and the circumstances.
I believe that there is a necessity in these circumstances that I do run. If the membership feels, however, that I should not be the leader, that’s up to the membership. That formulation was never done in identical terms to what the national constitution says.”
Asked what makes it a necessity to run for a third term, Ramjattan responded, “the membership of the party and the fact that I feel that I have provided leadership that is of a high quality. Not that Raphael can’t do that but just like Raphael will tell you, it does not exclude me.”
The National Conference will be held at the Vreed-en-Hoop Primary School, West Bank Demerara, Region Three.
