ALLIANCE For Change (AFC) Chairman, Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan, sidelined a week ago in a promised agreement to assume leadership of the party, has been keeping a low profile since.
Party sources said he was not seen at meetings last week and was prominently absent from talks the AFC has initiated on a possible coalition with the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) and other parties for the 2011 general elections.
Under a commitment to revolving leadership, Ramjattan was to have taken over last week from AFC leader, Mr. Raphael Trotman.
But that agreement has been set aside in a leadership crisis centred on a bid to retain Trotman as the leader and the AFC presidential candidate for next year’s elections over Ramjattan, party sources said.
The AFC failed to resolve the leadership impasse after a prolonged one-day meeting of its National Executive Committee (NEC) two Saturdays ago and insiders said it is now clear that Trotman is being favoured over Ramjattan as its presidential candidate for the 2011 general elections.
Disenchanted AFC insiders said the party has not adhered to its public commitment for revolving leadership and this has not gone down well with the Ramjattan faction.
Ramjattan’s backers have been pushing for him to replace Trotman at the helm of the party in keeping with the leadership rotation agreement and he is said to be considering forming a breakaway party.
The AFC said in a press release that its regional and international groups have now been officially mandated to nominate candidates for the presidential and prime ministerial positions, after which the NEC will make recommendations to its national conference scheduled for later in the year.
Trotman is a former senior PNCR member and parliamentarian who defected to form his own party while Ramjattan is a defector from the governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP).
The AFC is now seeking to merge with the PNCR after bitter differences earlier this year when Trotman accused PNCR leader, Mr. Robert Corbin, of being in secret talks with President Bharrat Jagdeo on a shared governance agreement for the 2011 elections.
Trotman flatly declared then that the AFC was not discussing an alliance with the PNCR but Corbin said the two parties have had several meetings, discussions and consultations on the issue.
Another PNCR defector, Peter Ramsaroop, was up to recently a senior member of the AFC leadership but he resigned and is being investigated for allegedly spying through concealed cameras on a teenaged female tenant in an apartment building he owns in Queenstown, Georgetown.