LEADER of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Khemraj Ramjattan, has come in for serious flack for defending his Party’s alliance with A Partnership for National Unity (APNU). What seems to be his undoing is his basing his defence on the argument that persons currently in the Party are not the ones who participated in such unsavoury practices in the past as the rigging of elections.

“I think that Mr Ramjattan attempting to whitewash the history of Guyana and trying to make it into ethnic politics is extremely and extraordinarily deceptive,” said Presidential Advisor on Governance and political stalwart, Ms Gail Teixeira in an interview yesterday.
Responding to the assertions, which were made public via an article in the Stabroek News, headlined ‘No alliance could have been end of AFC – Ramjattan says it’s time to move beyond PNC history’, Ms Teixeira went on to say that Ramjattan just might be suffering from a bout of amnesia.
“He seems to be suffering from amnesia or from some senior-citizen moments, because he went on to say that those persons in the APNU now were not associated with rigging…there are key persons in the APNU now who were around in those days,” Teixeira said.
She was most emphatic that try as he might, the AFC leader just cannot wish away the past. “It is particularly deceptive of Mr. Ramjattan to try to wish away the past,” she said.

NAMING NAMES
Teixeira took her reproof of the AFC Leader a step further by naming names, including the names of those who hold top positions within APNU, such as Brigadier (rt’d) David Granger, and Messrs Robert Corbin, Joseph Harmon, Carl Greenidge and Basil Williams.
“Of course, everyone focuses on Granger’s role in the 1973 rigged elections. One has to also remember that Mr Granger was also the security advisor to President Hoyte, right up to 1992, and as security advisor, he would have been knowledgeable of the rigging of elections in 1980 and 1985, and the considerations leading up to 1992. One can say that Mr Granger is very much a person of that era,” Texeira said, adding:
“So is Mr. Corbin; he was chief organiser; chief cook and bottle washer for a lot of the mischief in the rigged elections of 1973 and 1985.”
As to Harmon, Greenidge and Williams, Teixeira said: “Mr Harmon was a member of the army, a senior member who knew what went on in 1973, 1980 and 1995.
“Mr Greenidge, who was Minister of Finance and a member of the leadership and Executive of the People’s National Congress (PNC) and Cabinet is from that era… Even Mr Basil Williams, not as a cabinet member, but certainly a leader in the PNC.”
Stressing that the foregoing persons are but a few of those who were associated with the very unsavoury practices of the past, Teixeira said:
“I am just naming five people who are presently in the APNU; presently in the leadership of the PNC, who were all associated and knowledgeable of that era and of what went on.”
Teixeira made it clear that history speaks for itself, and these are facts that the Guyanese people have not forgotten.
“The rigging of elections affected all Guyanese; the right to choose a Government was stolen from us, and by persons who wanted to hold power at any cost,” she said.

‘I think that Mr Ramjattan attempting to whitewash the history of Guyana and trying to make it into ethnic politics is extremely and extraordinarily deceptive…
‘He seems to be suffering from amnesia or from some senior-citizen moments, because he went on to say that those persons in the APNU now were not associated with rigging…’
–- Presidential Adviser on Governance, Ms Gail Teixeira

SELLING POINT
Noting that while it is accepted that Ramjattan’s “deceptive” commentary is in line with his attempt to sell the APNU-AFC alliance, Teixeira said that Guyanese are not that easily deceived.
“I am sure Ramjattan has to do that (sell the Alliance); he is obliged to do that,” she said, adding: “But people have a long memory; I am sure many people might have been shocked to read the article today, where he is wishing away the past.”
She said, too, that while Guyanese ought not to live in the past, by the same token they ought not to forget the past.
“While we must not live in the past, we mustn’t forget the past, lest we be forced to repeat it. It (Ramjattan’s deception) is not something the Guyanese people will fall for,” she said.
Teixeira added that the years of the PNC’s regime have been recorded in the annals of history as the years of the “most undemocratic rule” experienced by the Guyanese people.

GENTLEMEN’S AGREEMENT
On the question of the “gentlemen’s agreement” characterizing the Cummingsburg Accord, which sealed the APNU-AFC Alliance, the Presidential Advisor pointed to Mr Granger’s history with such understandings, in that she sought to remind that in line with inclusive governance and powersharing, the Opposition Leader was given certain powers, following the 2001 Constitutional Reform process, relative to the appointment of constitutional office holders.
“It was essentially a gentlemen’s agreement,” Teixeira said by way of explaining that the crafters of the Constitution and the consensus from the Constitutional Reform process left it to the Opposition Leader to cooperate with the Executive to have the appointments made.
What happened instead, she said, was that Mr Granger’s inaction on several of these issues delayed the appointments.
“It was never anticipated that the Leader of the Opposition would withhold compliance with the Constitution; it was never conceived that there would be non-compliance,” she said, adding that if this was anticipated certain mechanism would have been put in place by the crafters of the Constitution.

CHALLENGES FOR ALLIANCE
The Alliance, since its Valentine’s Day consummation, has been plagued by several challenges.
Recently, days after former AFC General Secretary, Sixtus Edwards resigned from the party, another member publicly issued his resignation and has alleged that the recent decision to form a coalition with APNU was one made by a ‘gang of five’, without the authorisation of its membership.
Attorney-at-Law Balwant Persaud, speaking at a press conference recently, has vowed to do everything in his power to ensure that the AFC does not come to power, and has in fact now endorsed the People’s Progressive Party / Civic (PPP/C) as the Party for which he will now campaign.
APNU also has been faced with its own share of in-house battles, including resignations, among other issues.