MR. Sasenarine Singh, in a letter captioned `Trotman will be on the list of candidates for the AFC’ in the Tuesday, February 15 edition of the Kaieteur News, sought to assure his party’s supporters that their leader Mr. Raphael Trotman is not deserting them. He was responding to a recent article in the Guyana Chronicle headed `Trotman sees little hope for the AFC at elections’ and based around a statement Trotman made in the National Assembly earlier this month that this was most likely his last appearance there.
Now, everyone knows that under Guyana’s entrenched democracy that was restored on October 5, 1992 after a long and hard fight for free and fair elections, people get elected to the National Assembly if they are on the list of candidates of a contesting political party.
So, if a current Member of Parliament clearly states that he is “most likely” not going to be in the National Assembly under a system of free and fair elections, isn’t he saying he will most likely not be on the list of candidates that his party will put up for the general elections this year?
Singh repeated Trotman’s statement in his letter: “This most likely is my last budget presentation because I have resolved for myself that I will not be involved in the business of ‘playing politics’ or being in the Chamber for the sake of being here.”
Singh also said that he got “clearance” to state that Trotman recently stated that: “I, Raphael Trotman, will definitely be on the list of candidates for the AFC” at this year’s national elections.
Trotman is current Leader of the AFC (Alliance For Change) and if he’s on the party’s list of candidates, then he’ll be high up on that list; and if the AFC gets some parliamentary seats, then he is most likely to be back in the parliament where he said he’s “most likely” not to be.
This is not even close to clearing the air as Singh promised at the beginning of his letter.
In fact, I am very confused and I’ve been rubbing my eyes because I feel the AFC is kicking dust in the eyes of those following the developments in that party in the run-up to the elections.
The current system of free and fair elections under which Guyanese choose their government by majority vote is not likely to be changed any time soon – at least not for the elections this year.
So, when Trotman talks about returning to Parliament under “changed circumstances”, he is certainly not talking about this year’s elections.
Or is he thinking about returning as an elected member or technocrat of another party?