Saturday’s election of Raphael Trotman as Leader of the AFC – one of the two main components of the governing coalition – will be seen as a major upset and a blow to the incumbent – Khemraj Ramjattan who had been going for a third term.
For most of the period leading up to the National Conference of the AFC, Mr Ramjattan appeared to be coasting to victory and had on several occasions expressed his confidence of winning re-election on the strength of his leadership and experience as a Minister of the government.
It would be recalled that it was Mr Ramjattan who led the party into the historic alliance with APNU and which succeeded in unseating the PPP/C after its 22+ years in office. It would appear that the belated withdrawal from the leadership contest on Friday by Prime Minister Nagamootoo was aimed at preventing a split in the votes that were available to Ramjattan but even this did not succeed in stopping Mr Trotman’s win.
The results from Saturday’s voting reflect a clear split down the middle. Mr Trotman won the leadership by a margin of two votes when there were four spoilt votes. He received 127 votes and the incumbent 125. It is unclear whether there was a recount or a request for one given the narrowness of the margin. The almost even split in votes bespeaks a significant division in the ranks of the AFC which appeared to have had its genesis in Mr Ramjattan’s intention to seek a third term.
There was a flurry of letters to the press and other statements denouncing this intention as being in violation of the spirit of the party’s constitution. Mr Christopher Ram who had played a role in the beginnings of the party would later confirm that the intention of the founders of the movement was that the term limit would be observed and a proviso for an extended term existed only to cater for exigencies. There was clearly none at this point.
In what was an attempt to ease the heat over the issue and an intervention on behalf of Mr Ramjattan, the AFC issued a press release on January 21, a week before the election, in which it made the argument that the article of the party’s constitution cited by Mr Ramjattan’s detractors catered for more than two consecutive terms as leader.
This article of the constitution stated that “The various senior positions of the AFC, including those in the National Executive, Regions and Groups ought to be rotated as far as is possible so that no member is allowed to serve more than two consecutive terms in the same office, so as to ensure a broader activism in leadership positions by the membership.”
There however appeared to have been a deeply held view in the ranks of the party that the time had come for a rotation of the party leadership -even if since 2005 the position has been monopolised by Messrs Trotman and Ramjattan.
Was it the case that some of the sentiment in the party against Mr Ramjattan reflected concern over the crime rate considering his position as Minister of Public Security? It is possible although the voting doesn’t appear to be a backlash against the presence of the AFC in senior Cabinet positions as Trotman holds the equally significant Natural Resources portfolio.
Another upset in the results would be the big loss by General Secretary David Patterson to Marlon Williams. This result could reflect disenchantment by the grassroots with how the party’s business is being conducted and is even more surprising considering Mr Patterson’s high public profile as Minister of Public Infrastructure.
Mr Trotman now faces the uphill task of uniting his divided party and ensuring that it retains its distinctive character within the governing coalition and isn’t overwhelmed by its main partner, APNU. It is a widely held perception in the public that for some time Mr Trotman had been considering returning to the fold of the PNCR where he began his political career. With the leadership of the AFC now in his hands, all eyes will be on Mr Trotman to ensure that the AFC sticks to its original mandate of orchestrating a change in the stultifying political culture brewed by the two major parties for more than half of a century to the detriment of the country’s progress.
There is, of course, the major challenge of ensuring that the AFC isn’t sidelined in the coalition. The AFC’s first major attempt to stamp its mark on the coalition was its declaration following a party retreat in April, 2016 – that the concentration of powers in the hands of Minister of State Harmon was creating problems for the coalition.
That attempt ended ignominiously without any impact. The AFC was ignored by APNU and Minister Harmon’s work continues unimpeded with at least one other addition to his expansive portfolio, the environment. Furthermore, the retreat held on the issue of Minister Harmon appeared to have created divisions in the AFC and this was to lead to the resignation of its influential Chairman, Nigel Hughes who did not contest for any positions this time around.
The challenge for the AFC is to find a modus vivendi with APNU on pivotal issues such as the selection of the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission which is shaping up to be a defining moment for both sides this year.
Mr Trotman has the portfolio for Natural Resources and there will be much interest in his party and in the public over the development of green energy and the oil and gas sector. There are many concerns that before a single drop of oil is extracted offshore, Guyana has much to do to ensure a rigorous framework for environmental protection and accounting transparently for every single dollar earned and spent. In this respect, the progress by the government and Minister Trotman’s ministry towards acceding to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative will be closely watched.
In his address to the AFC National Conference in December 2014, Mr Ramjattan quoted the American political scientist and author Francis Fukuyama as stating: “Political decay also occurs when institutions fail to adapt to changing external circumstances, either out of intellectual rigidities or because of the power of incumbent elites to protect their positions and block change.
And while democratic political systems have self-correcting mechanisms that allow them to reform, they also open themselves up to decay by legitimating the activities of powerful interest groups that can block needed change.”
As in 2014, Mr Fukuyama’s sobering admonition is relevant today and the new executive of the AFC should continue to ponder it.
