AFC in a slump

DESPITE STRONG ARGUMENTS TO THE CONTRARY, it seems very clear that the
parliamentary opposition Alliance For Change (AFC) party is in decline. The shrinking of the
party is partly based on the loss by the coalition government of which AFC is a part at the
bitterly controversial 2020 polls.
www.aroundtheregions.com last week reported on the party’s reiteration of its desire simply to
be a ‘third force’ on the local political fabric. However, one local event after another seem to
challenge even this severely limited political ambition of the opposition grouping.
Let’s look at the AFC’s recently held Regional Management Committee elections in Linden, a
political bastion of the main opposition Peoples National Congress (PNC) which was the major
party of the A Party for National Unity (APNU+AFC)) coalition which won the 2015 but lost the
2020 polls.
At that RMC meeting, the AFC attracted a paltry eight members to such an important marque
regional event for the party arrogating to itself the responsibility for maintaining balance in a
country with a perennially divisive and hostile political environment.
Social media are putting pressure on every segment of society, and the nation is no longer
hostage to print or broadcast outfits (mis) characterisations or deletions of key information from
their reportage.
A social media group was broadcasting that only five persons turned up for the RMC meeting.
The post was gaining traction in the social media sphere raising the anxiety of first-time AFC
legislator, Mr. Deonarine ‘Ricky’ Ramsaroop.

When challenged, Ramsaroop told www.aroundtheregions.com, journalist, Mr. Rawle Nelson
that the accurate figure was eight. At that poorly-attended meeting, a source told this media
house that members were expected to vote for at least six office bearers.
“What happened is that there were eight persons and like I say this is not a petty election, it’s a
serious thing where you have to be financially ready and you have to be honest with it. There is
no flexibility in terms of financial members so you can be a member for 1five, 20 years but if
you are not financially up to date at the time of the elections then you cannot participate, so I
think that some of that would have caused some members not to turn up that’s one and like any
elections things do happen and people do….,” he asserted.
He blamed the poor attendance on existing party rules which demand that those persons seeking
to participate in the RMC must be financially up-to-date at the time elections are run off.
Ramsaroop admitted that there were attempts by two of the eight persons to have the RMC
postponed but being a democratically run party this was taken to a vote with six voting to go
ahead with the elections.
He said that before the party’s National Conference there is the Regional Management
Committee elections, which are held in the various Administrative Regions. He disclosed that
Region Ten has now two sub districts being Linden and Kwakwani and the latter established its
first RMC after a number of years of being grouped with Linden as Region Ten.
“Kwakwani’s RMC was held a few weeks back and then Linden was held Sunday gone,
(recently) the meeting was ok, sometimes when you set the elections on Sunday people have
different things including church and so on but we had a pretty good reasonable response in
terms of the members,” he said.
The AFC official was at the recent RMC as “the returning officer and I was very happy to carry
out the elections. Every election according to our AFC constitution you have to give one month’s
notice, so one month ago there was a notice circulating that elections will be on such and such
time and such and such place.”

Ramsaroop is undeterred by what he described as “the utterings of the disgruntled members”,
and promised to continue working along with the newly-elected RMC members to serve so that
the party can grow significantly.
He suspects the two members who failed to get the meeting postponed have been sowing
discord.
“When people are coming and trying to spread false rumors based on that and I suspect who they
are as we had two members who were not happy to have the elections and wanted to postpone,
but then you can’t postpone it when you had one month and didn’t do the work that you’re
supposed to be doing,” the AFC MP declared.
He said that with the two sub districts (Linden and Kwakwani) completing their election of
office bearers, they will now determine which of the two elected chairmen will be the overall
Chairman for Region Ten (Upper Demerara/Berbice).
Those elected were: Chairman, Mr. Devine Sears; Vice Chairman, Mr. Mark Goring;
Secretary, Kady Sears; Treasurer, Mr. Roger Kingston; for the newly-created position of
Assistant Treasurer Secretary, the attendees elected Ms. Tiffany Marshall.