Dear Editor,
I would like to add some notes to your editorial of Monday, January 30; they should be of interest to Guyanese wherever they are. In that editorial you observed that: “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.”
I bring to your attention my column in the Kaieteur News of Friday, January 27 in which I wrote that four long-serving AFC executive members told me that since the AFC got into power, Mr Trotman has only attended 3 meetings of the executive committee, named the Management Committee, that has been meeting every Monday evening since July 2015. I then specifically asked if there was a paper trail that I could rely on if Mr Trotman denies that should I write about it.
I was told that since July 2015 the meetings have minutes and a record of those absent and present. On that information, I went ahead and published the column. I stand by what I wrote because I trust implicitly my sources in the AFC who gave me that information. It is unheard of that an organization would have a written constitution and is silent on the status of attendance of leadership meetings.
In my moral book, that should disqualify that leader from becoming the head of his organization. It is for that reason I was shocked when I read that Mr Trotman accepted contesting the leadership position. This country’s electorate is perhaps more backward than that of any other country in the world. Mr Trotman despite that record of absenteeism is now the leader of the AFC.
How can Guyanese and other observers of politics in this land fault members and supporters of the PPP when they glorify PPP leaders who are highly questionable in both their politics and moral values? When I went to the school where the conference was held, it was over and I saw a few delegates wearing T-shirts that said, ‘Vote Raphael Trotman for Leader.’ One such person is a sibling of a minister who knew Trotman missed 98 per cent of the Management Committee’s confabulations. That minister should have told the sibling that Trotman should not have been elected.
The sordid politics and questionable moral behaviour inside the AFC and WPA rival those of the PPP and PNC. Because the PNC and PPP held power for so long and ruled Guyana for so long, we tend to see them as the devil incarnate, but the AFC and WPA are not far behind in their political depravities. I will end with one example from each – the AFC and WPA ‒ to show how tragic is the political culture of this sad, bewildered country.
In May 2015 when the AFC’s Management Committee sat down to name their ministers, two of its leaders offered the Minister of the Environment to a total outsider of the AFC. They were offering a ministerial position to their personal friend. I wrote this in a Kaieteur News column and then General-Secretary, David Patterson sent me an email. I still have it. He informed me that the AFC took a position since its birth that if it ever got into power it would offer a Cabinet post to a person from civil society. Several persons in the AFC’s leadership told me that was misleading. But who decided who was a member of civil society? The person that was chosen was not a member of civil society.
Secondly, Mr Christopher Ram wrote the Kaieteur News to inform it that I was wrong in one of my columns to state he was a member of the WPA. Ram also wrote to say that attorney Jerome Khan was wrong too to say he, Ram was a member of the WPA. I knew Ram sat in the WPA’s executive for more than a decade. When I asked Dr David Hinds to set the record straight publicly, he told me Ram was right. David said that during his time in the leadership of the WPA, Ram never held a membership card. But even that fact, David refused to state publicly.
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Kissoon
