A BAND of former members of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) and backers of the almost defunct Rise Organise and Rebuild Guyana (ROAR) group seems to be key players in the small Alliance For Change (AFC) party, according to political analysts. The analysts have noted that Mr. Sasenarine Singh, who became a bitter anti-PPP/C critic after he failed to get a senior position in the government, has emerged as the unofficial AFC spokesman, putting his spin on party matters in letters to the media.
One analyst pointed to a letter by Mr. Navindra Persaud in yesterday’s Kaieteur News in which he claimed that Singh is “behaving like the party leader and treating (Raphael) Trotman as the ordinary member.”
“After he pushed hard through the newspapers and bottom house campaign for Ramjattan to be the opposition presidential candidate, and the ex-PPP chaps and ROAR boys in Queens, New York tell Raphael Trotman his time is up, Sase continues to watch over and guides what happens in the AFC”, he charged.
Persaud stated: “Has anybody noticed Trotman has now become the AFC boy toy? Whenever he speaks somebody from the party comes out behind him and say (sic) what he is saying is not what he means, or the AFC is still united, or some similar crap.
“Somehow it sounds as though Trotman has no control over what he wants to say, is either on psychotic medication, or he is not towing the party line of the financiers and media boys so he has to be constantly corrected and what he says have (sic) to be interpreted by them.
“These chaps only do this to Trotman, not to Sheila Holder and Khemraj Ramjattan. If Ramjattan and Holder say or write anything in the media they leave it alone. They would only comment if somebody disagrees with Ramjattan and Holder and this is only to give support to what these two persons said; never to correct what they say.”
Political observers also noted that Singh last week took it upon himself to state that Trotman will be a candidate for the AFC at this year’s general elections after the party leader declared in the National Assembly that he was not likely to return there unless circumstances were changed.
Analysts interpreted Trotman’s declaration to the National Assembly as a clear indication that he was not going to be on the AFC list of candidates for this year’s elections but Singh said 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 elections.
According to one observer, “Persaud in his letter seems to have opened a can of worms. It will be interesting to see how this develops and who are really running things in the AFC.”