While Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo has suggested that the Alliance For Change’s recent selection of a coalition prime ministerial candidate was ill-timed, newly-elected Vice Chairperson Cathy Hughes had defended the decision, while saying it was a necessary move.
Nagamootoo raised the issue last Saturday as he was leaving the party’s National Conference ahead of the commencement of discussions on the issue.
“While I may believe that the timing of this may not be an ideal timing, I don’t decide that. That is a party decision and I have to abide by the decision,” he told reporters outside of St. Paul’s Retreat, where 275 delegates were gathered.
In addition to internal elections, the conference saw several motions, including one on the selection of the prime ministerial candidate for the APNU+AFC coalition, being raised for discussion. Delegates, by an overwhelming show of support, opted for Khemraj Ramjattan, who was elected leader just shortly before, to be put forward as the party’s prime ministerial candidate should it go once again to the polls in a coalition with APNU.
Nagamootoo noted that the consideration of a prime ministerial candidate was happening on the eve of today’s Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) decision on the no-confidence vote. “For me, you have to be careful of the optics; that you don’t send a message that you’re already in elections mode and you’re accepting the fact that the motion might have been carried and so you are already selecting candidates for an election,” he told reporters.
He said he was looking at the timing from a public relations point of view and not at the substance of the issue. “I believe that at some point in time Nagamootoo will have to make way for someone and that for me is the perfect transition. I’m not here as a dinosaur to stay or an old boat dropping my anchor and remain there forever. That has not been my thought. I’m now in a position where I have to look literally at what I do to build the new generation… [and] leaders,” he explained.
“…The decisions [of the conference] have to be made in a way that reflects the political reality of Guyana… that reality says that you need to have timing and timing is very important,” he added.
Later when told of Nagamootoo’s concern, Hughes said that it is an issue that the party will have to deal with. “We do not have a luxury of another National Conference. Our National Conference was due now. We decided that we were having it [and] we had it and we are prepared to enter an election whenever… it’s necessary. We have said as a government that we’re going to be guided by the ruling of the CCJ,” she noted, before adding that the financial cost of holding the conference was good enough reason to have the matter of the prime ministerial candidate addressed. “It is an extremely expensive venture, so it makes absolutely no sense for the AFC to be unprepared. This is part of our preparation for going into a national election,” she said.
Meanwhile, Nagamootoo said that with those selected for the top four positions – Leader, Chairman, Vice Chairperson and General Secretary – the party has reorganised itself and regrouped and has gone back to its original leaders. “And so, therefore, at this point in time it appears to me that optimism or pessimism is not the way to go, it’s to allow the process to take its course,” he added.
Responding to concerns that the AFC leadership is being recycled, thereby shutting out the youth, Nagamootoo posited that this was also a feature of the older parties who did not change their leaders “very often.”
“This party is going through its formative years; it’s 14 years in existence and I think that’s still young day,” he, however, added, while noting that the party needs some more time to incubate and make way for “young people, fresh blood.”
He further said, “…I don’t think we could judge the AFC on the basis that it has leaders who are being recycled. For me, that is a very obscene way of dealing with political movement. It’s not the recycling you’re looking at, you’re looking at the development and maturity of the party; so mature that it has a process of rotation. No other party has a process of rotation.” He reminded that there have been occasions where some parties have had “leaders for life.”
Nagamootoo noted that the AFC has grown since its formation and acknowledged that critics will always have negatives to say. “We can’t work according to the agenda of the detractors. We have to work in real term that here is a party that is a member and part of a coalition and its contribution… is not in proportion to its own strength. Its contribution to the coalition is in proportion to its political influence and the AFC has a strong political influence throughout Guyana,” he added.
