Ahead of tomorrow’s National Executive Conference (NEC), where top positions in the Alliance For Change (AFC) are expected to be keenly contested, Executive Member Imran Khan yesterday claimed he and his wife have been threatened by a “thug” associated with a senior party official but up to press time there was no indication that a formal complaint had been lodged.
Khan, in a statement to the press which was also shared on his Facebook page yesterday, did not name the senior party official or the person he identified as being responsible for the threats. However, the statement signalled an intense internal rivalry and it comes on the heels of several posts he made on Facebook after his wife’s name was allegedly removed from the party’s delegates’ list on Nomination Day. He had threatened to seek a court injunction to halt Saturday’s NEC if the matter was not resolved.
The damaging charge yesterday by Khan has come after weeks of simmering tensions underpinned by rivalry for the post of prime minister in the next government were APNU+AFC to be re-elected. After a poor showing in the November 2018 local government elections and the defection of its MP, Charrandass Persaud to the PPP/C at the December 21, 2018 no confidence vote, the AFC has been under intense scrutiny and internal dissent has risen.
When contacted yesterday, outgoing General Secretary Marlon Williams disclosed that he was yet to receive a complaint from Khan and was quick to argue that the latter’s statements were indications of healthy politics and are in keeping with the democratic principles that guide the AFC.
Party leader Raphael Trotman declined to comment when contacted. “I would prefer not to offer any comment at this stage, except to say that the AFC’s delegates will determine all issues that pertain to the party. The conference is the place where all matters will be addressed,” he noted.
In his statement, Khan, who returned to Guyana from Antigua to support the AFC and the coalition government just before the 2015 elections, described the AFC as Guyana’s “leading liberal and progressive” political party.
He said while he was confident that it will continue to grow in membership and stature after this weekend’s NEC and elections, recent events in the “internal political skirmishes” have given rise to the fear that there are those who place “self-interest and personal entitlement and ambition above the interest of the party, the Coalition Government and Guyana.”
He further said that this is a development which ought to be of serious concern to party members and the wider Guyanese public and added that many would be disturbed to learn of these developments and machinations, which he claimed are principally engineered by a “small band of self-serving, entitled persons.”
Khan said that during the PPP/C government, when he lived and worked in Antigua and was engaged in political activism against the PPP government, it was reported to him that a former PPP/C president had vowed that as long as he was in charge he would never work in Guyana again.
“Now, a well-known hooligan, thug and convicted felon who is being (coddled), sheltered and protected by a very senior executive of my own political party has threatened me and my wife that when his benefactor attains a certain political office my wife and I will be ‘chased back to Antigua,’” he further claimed.
Khan said the senior party executive is fuelling this “thug and his co-conspirators with alcohol and political promises” and that they have been camping outside the party headquarters on a daily basis and “abuse and intimidate persons who are considered not to be supportive of their cause.”
Further, he claimed that another “political thug,” who is a known supporter of the senior official, has been actively engaged in attempting to have his name removed from the delegates’ list and has vowed that he will leave no stone unturned until he is successful. So far he has not been successful, Khan said, before warning that he shall not be prevented from fulfilling his duties as a delegate to the upcoming conference.
“Agents and collaborators of this high executive conspired to have my wife, who is the Secretary of Women for Change, removed as a WFC delegate at the very last minute. A battle had to be waged for her to be restored as a delegate,” he reminded.
According to Khan, these developments are not the “usual cut and thrust of politics [but] …is the politics of stench and destruction which the AFC must demolish with haste lest it begins to infect the entire party.”
He said that it is indeed bewildering that someone who played a central role in “birthing, nurturing and building a political movement” could be so eager to destroy and endanger that very movement in the pursuit of naked ambition on the basis purely of entitlement.
“Dangerously, criminals and misfits are infiltrating the AFC with a view to changing its character and direction and the party must take decisive and condign action to weed them out with haste,” he stressed.
Khan urged that the party ensure that political sanity and good order is restored immediately after this weekend’s conference. “What is being done is embarrassing the party inside and out. I have confidence that the good people who make up the membership of the AFC understand what has taken place and will act decisively to thwart the efforts of those who seek to embarrass and cause division and destruction within the party,” he added.
Prime Ministerial candidate
Meanwhile, Williams said that the NEC will be held at St. Paul’s Retreat on the East Coast, where motions would be considered and elections would be held.
It has been suggested that the party’s proposed prime ministerial candidate for the upcoming general elections would be decided on during the conference. It is known that party Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan is keen on assuming the position from current Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo.
Williams explained that the substantive function of the national conference is to make key decisions based on whatever motions are brought from the floor. “And in this instance we have more than 18 motions expected,” he noted.
The top four positions to be contested will be those of Leader, Chairman, Vice Chairperson and General Secretary, while there will also be elections for 12 seats on the party’s executive. “At this juncture, we had nominations on June 1st, and those nominations have produced four persons competing for Leader, four persons competing for Chairman, eleven persons competing for Vice Chair and six persons competing for General Secretary,” Williams said.
He indicated that at this point he has no interest in being re-elected or seeking the Vice-Chairperson nomination.
Williams said there are 86 persons competing for the 12 executive seats. “So as you can see, it’s a robust process; it’s very democratic, where there are lots of participation and I am sure there will, like any other organisation… group or national elections…[be] degrees of brinkmanship.”
Pressed on the issue of the prime ministerial candidate, he said, “Well I cannot disclose what motions are there but there are several motions to the floor.” Asked if there is a possibility that this issue will be dealt with by way of motion, he responded “…There are several motions to the floor….Like I said I cannot disclose the different motions that will be brought to the floor but there are several motions”
Williams, who indicated that he was out of town, said when he checks his email he will be able to establish if Khan has sent him a complaint.
“I rather suspect it is degrees of brinksmanship. Of course, everybody have their own vested interest and their own PR. This is the beauty of democracy. The Alliance For Change came into being in Guyana to promote oneness [and] unity,” he said in reaction to Khan’s statement.
He stressed that the goal of the party is to ensure that Guyana moves forward in a “bipartisan” way. “We have always had a bipartisan approach to decisions. We’ve always had a democratic approach to decisions. There is no way that we will move from that approach. We will continue to go along that line,” he stressed before adding that in its Constitution, the party is a democratic party and those democratic principles of democracy will always guide it.
While Ramjattan has openly declared his interest in being the party’s nominee for Prime Minister on the APNU+AFC ticket, Trotman has publicly thrown his support behind Nagamootoo. The party’s leader has warned that replacing him at this time could be seen as indicative of accepting that the APNU+AFC coalition has failed as a government.
Hours before he issued his statement, Khan informed that he has been receiving constant messages from many members of the coalition partners, from senior executives to ordinary members. “They have asked me to convey best wishes to Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo for the AFC National Conference this weekend and advise him of their full support. I am sure many have contacted the Prime Minister directly and send their wishes through others. Many of them have expressed dismay that the issue of Prime Ministerial candidacy is even up for discussion within the AFC,” he posted on his Facebook page.
On Wednesday, in response to an online news article, he said that there will not be any election of the Prime Ministerial candidate at the conference.
“I am not certain whether our Chairman has been misquoted or taken out of context but I am not aware that there is any election for Prime Ministerial candidate at the National Conference scheduled for Saturday. There is no such election scheduled or on the agenda,” he said.
“There may be motions submitted which speak to the issue but there is no election scheduled for Prime Ministerial candidate,” he said before proceeding to list the position which will be contested.
In his June 9th edition of his ‘My Turn’ column in the state-owned Sunday Chronicle, Nagamootoo pressed for unity within the party’s ranks and for a “better image” to be portrayed.
“On the sideline, the enemies of the party expect to see blood on the floor of the conference. Like the fabled but terrifying witch-doctors, they have been concocting a toxic devil’s brew of division and personality clashes amongst AFC leaders,” he wrote. “The better image of the AFC as a sturdy party will shine. This image unwittingly is being projected by the fickle detractors who have been advertising the conference as a battle for pre-eminence between the party’s super-weights. In a wicked, racist obsession over the AFC’s actual strength and electoral appeal, they have singled out the foremost Indo-Guyanese as chief contenders, setting one up against the other, in a manufactured frenzy over power. It wouldn’t work!” he added.
