http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article?id=56525639AFC election
Trotman leader, Ramjattan chairman -Sheila Holder is vice chairman
By Miranda La Rose
Stabroek News,
Sunday, July 29th 2007
Youth must be the key: Two young Alliance For Change members reading the
party's publication The Key before the start of its first ever congress
yesterday morning at the St Stanislaus College Auditorium. (Photo by Aubrey
Crawford)
AFC former chairman Raphael Trotman was elected to the post of party Leader
after the other nominee Khemraj Ramjattan declined nomination at the party's
First National Conference held at St Stanislaus College yesterday.
Ramjattan himself was elected to the post of Chair-man, while Sheila Holder
was returned as Vice Chairman.
At press time, the count was still on to establish who had been elected
Chief Executive Officer, a post for which there was two nominees, as well as
the twelve persons who would serve as committee members.
In delivering the charge, Trotman vowed to uphold the principles of the
movement, and to advance the cause of change and transformation. He also
called on the executive for renewed commitment and energy to restore the
pride of place of the AFC in the eyes of supporters and the electorate.
Yesterday's elections were the first the AFC has held since it came into
being. It was initially led by a steering committee.
In his address as Chairman at the opening of the congress yesterday morning,
Trotman listed a number of issues to which the party will give priority.
Among these are organisation and discipline, raising finances to carry out
its work programme, and enhancing and solidifying relations with the
diaspora. He also listed political issues and ways of agitating for change,
preparations for local government elections and building alliances with
like-minded citizens.
He said these were the themes identified to guide the party's discussions,
as its relevance in the Guyanese societal context remained the same as
before the last general and regional elections when it came into being
during "great distress and despair."
Meanwhile in his address as Leader, Ramjattan said the current challenges
include strategising how to win the argument, articulate the better and
fairer policy, transform the mindset of an electorate historically
entrenched in a racial divide and inculcate a new reason-based political
culture.
The one-day conference, which attracted some 400 local and overseas-based
delegates and observers, and special invitees, was held under the theme
'United for Change.'
Trotman noted that since the last elections the AFC has seen "the
introduction of VAT, rising unemployment, greater levels of migration,
changing crime as the grip of the drug lords slackens and another type is
burgeoning."
He said it was obvious that racial tensions were at an all-time high when
rows of newspaper columns could be dedicated to which racial group brought
the head kerchief to Guyana. And that this could happen while women and
children continued to endure the most heinous crimes showed that something
was wrong with Guyana.
He said there was a place for the AFC when the government ignored the
suffering of thousands, who are forced, out of necessity, to steal
electricity from the national grid and sought instead to persecute them even
as little children were dying because of exposure to live wires.
Many ills, he said, were being glossed over by the government including the
non-appointment of important constitutional commissions such as the Office
of the Ombudsman, procurement, human rights, indigenous peoples, rights of
the child, integrity, and others, and the public appellate tribunal.
He also noted the non-consultation with stakeholders for casino gambling,
the withdrawal of advertisements from the Stabroek News as a political
weapon, the abandonment of the national development strategy process and the
continued incarceration without trial of Mark Benschop, now considered as
cruel and inhumane punishment. He also spoke of the withholding of the Lotto
Funds from the Consolidated Fund and the failure to announce or bestow
national awards for the past five years.
He said there had also been the irregular and extraordinary functioning of
senior legal and constitutional officers such as Chancellor/Chief Justice,
Chief Magistrate, Director of Public Prosecu-tions, Police Commissioner and
judges of the High Court. He cited the mishandling and manhandling of the
Region Ten seat issue in favour of the PPP/C, the suspension of the process
of inter-party dialogue under an enhanced framework for cooperation and the
non-assent of 12 bills passed by the Eighth Parliament.
He said that the barbarity of offences committed in Agricola and elsewhere,
the murder of journalist Ronald Waddell and government minister Satyadeow
Sawh and the relative youthfulness of the perpetrators were most disturbing.
Frightening indicators which should be addressed not simply by more guns or
boots marching through the streets, but through better research,
intelligence gathering and analysis at institutions of higher learning, he
said were "the seeming indifference as reflected in the eyes and attitudes
of those committing the crimes to the concept of right or wrong."
Outlining the journey the AFC has travelled since it came into being in
October 2005, Ramjattan said no other genuine third party in the Caribbean
or in Guyana ever succeeded in gaining five seats at national elections in a
matter of ten months.
"We did so well, we had to lend a seat to the PPP/C so that it could provide
one for its Prime Minister in the National Assembly," he said, tongue in
cheek, adding that through litigation the AFC has "started the process of a
recall on that loan."
Describing the political and economic situations at the national level as
sad, Ramjattan said bad governance and corruption permeated almost every
quarter and institution, and it came from the PPP/C administration, "which
believes that democracy begins and ends at winning elections."
Denouncing the denial of government advertisements to break the financial
viability of Stabroek News and the assertion that it was still necessary to
maintain the state monopoly of radio, he said, "These archdukes of
unprincipledom care not what Guyanese or the outside world think of them
when they exhibit such crass inconsistency of position."
He said the President and the government "sign onto treaties of all kinds at
the international level to show off their supposed democratic credentials,
only to have these treaties not implemented into our domestic order."
He quoted from a World Bank survey titled 'Guyana Investment Climate at a
Glance' which said that 15% of firms did not trust the judicial system; 20%
of firms did not trust the government; 15.3% of contract value was for
bribes; 3.5% of annual sales was payment "to get things done"; 20 days to
clear customs for imports and 14 days to clear customs for exports. "Is it
any wonder why doing business in Guyana or wanting to invest here requires a
Herculean effort?" he asked.
He said that in terms of the brain drain Guyana was ranked at 117 out of 117
countries; money laundering through banks 117 out of 117; reliability of
police services, 116 out of 117; centralization of economic policy making,
115 out of 117; growth competitiveness index, 115 out of 117; irregular
payments in public contracts, 114 out of 117; and macro economic environment
index, 113 out of 117.
"So if is not last space we running, it is second, third or fourth to last!"
he said, adding that those were the reasons why Transparency Interna-tional
in its Corruption Perception Index has ranked Guyana at 121 out of 159
countries.
"These statistics, vital in any honest attempt to put our economy in its
true and proper perspective, are never disseminated to the public by NCN and
GINA. Do you see now why they want to hang onto almost an absolute form of
control of information; why no freedom of information act, why no private
radio station?"
