Teixeira slams AFC’s ludicrous position
–  says party’s position to disenfranchise Guyanese is based on ‘strange bogeymen created’
IN an ill-advised outburst during his presentation in Parliament, Alliance For Change (AFC) presidential candidate, Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan, practically accused the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) of being bribed by the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) government for its intervention to allow a period whereby persons willing to vote could get on the voters’ list, providing they can produce their source documents. He was also reprimanded by the Speaker of the National Assembly Mr. Ralph Ramkarran for scathing remarks he made about opposition Commissioner on GECOM, Mr. Robert Williams, who had voted in favour of GECOM’s re-opening of the Claims and Objections exercise.

However, with the main opposition People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR’s) last-minute reversal of position, the National Assembly last Thursday passed into law the National Registration (Amendment) Bill No. 14 of 2011, after a non-acrimonious debate – sometimes filled with levity at the expense of the AFC, which provides for eligible Guyanese, who were unable to register, primarily because of a lack of source documents, to be added to the list of registrants.

Presidential Advisor and PPP/C Member of Parliament Ms. Gail Teixeira has since slammed the AFC’s blunt refusal to allow the enfranchisement of many persons.

Teixeira said the AFC “seems to be holding on to all sorts of spurious claims to justify the fact that they have been supporting the disenfranchisement of many electors.”

The AFC’s claims, she said, seems to be based on some “strange bogeymen” that they have created, that the re-opening of the Claims and Objections period will, somehow, throw the programming by GECOM to allow it to hold elections in the constitutional period, and that this intervention will delay the holding of elections this year, which will result in President Bharrat Jagdeo staying on as President until 2012.

Teixeira said, unequivocally, that that contention was “absolutely baseless” and is, in fact, a bogeyman.  “The AFC is trying to create red herrings where there are none, because GECOM had given every assurance to the contesting parties that the intervention is merely to ensure that persons who want to vote are not disenfranchised and that they are able to get registered to be included in the voters’ list,” Teixeira said.
According to her, GECOM had assured parties heading to the polls this year that this reopening will not, in any way, prevent the elections from being held within the constitutional period which is before December 28.
“So we are assured by GECOM that this intervention will not violate that in any way but despite the disclosures by Dr. Surujbally and by GECOM, the AFC is still making up this statement, as at today, that Jagdeo is still going to be here (as President) until 2012,” Teixeira said.
“This is absolutely baseless, absolutely untrue, and therefore the AFC seems to be holding on to all sorts of spurious claims to justify the fact that they have been supporting the disenfranchisement of many electors,” she  told the Chronicle in an invited comment on Thursday, prior to resumption of the sitting of the National Assembly after the break in Parliament.

PPP/C, PNCR UNITE
Teixeira also noted that after negotiations, the ruling PPP/C and the main opposition PNCR have brokered a position of consensus on the troubling issue of the reopening of Claims and Objections period, with Minister of Legal Affairs, Hon. Charles Ramson, SC, negotiating on behalf of the PPP/C and Opposition Leader Robert Corbin representing the PNCR.

“We have reached agreement, at this last moment, with the PNC,” she said.

“The AFC has not been part of any brokerage or attempt to reach consensus, whatsoever, on the re-opening of the claims and objections; so the debate (at Thursday’s sitting of Parliament) will commence in a short while, and we hope that everyone keeps to what they agreed to, in terms of the PNC agreement with us,” Teixeira said.

“However, at this last minute, we are happy that the PNC has reached agreement with us – consensus with us on the re-opening as they, like us in the PPP/C had said that there were concerns about persons who were unable to register because of their birth certificates; so the PNC changing their position is welcome at this point.

“The AFC’s position, we had no agreement with it and we find their position absolutely ludicrous. 
“So we are happy, as I said earlier, that the PNC, at this last moment, has come on board, in terms of agreeing for the re-opening of the Claims and Objections period.
“I think they recognized that they were on record in GECOM and other places saying that they had concerns, just like we had. The PNC went out in statements at GECOM, and publicly, that they had concerns.
“We also had concerns, and we took the approach to go for the re-opening. However, they then suddenly, for whatever reason, reversed their position.
I think they have now woken up.”
With some degree of levity, Teixeira said that they don’t know whether they are dealing with PNC, or PNCR, or PNCR-1G, or APNU.
“We are dealing in Parliament and GECOM with the PNC.
“The PNC in GECOM had a different position, but the PNC in Parliament has come to a consensus with the PPP/C.”
Asked whether legal complications could arise out of agreements made with the PNCR, with APNU going to the polls, Teixeira responded: “I don’t think so from Parliament’s point-of-view, or law-making point-of-view.  The parties that register for elections are the parties that will be the ones that will be recognized… and which fill the criteria; so (it matters not) whatever name they give themselves…”

SHADOW
On the perception that the PNC has been dissolved with the formation of APNU, Teixeira jocularly responded: “…PNC seems to have some shadow somewhere, but they are still out there talking, so good luck to them in this.”

For Parliamentary affairs, the PPP/C is constrained to deal with the PNCR, as that is the only political party within the APNU framework that has any (significant) parliamentary representation.

Politicians in the confederation of parties that fought against the repressive PNC regime in 1992 within the PCD framework recall that Dr. Rupert Roopnarine, representing the WPA, had proposed a governmental structure of a President, Vice-President, Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister to incorporate all the parties that comprised the PCD.

However, he had warned that if Dr. Cheddi Jagan became President there would be mayhem in the country, and that the police and army would rebel and overthrow the government.

This was during the period when Granger was Security Advisor to then President Desmond Hoyte.

He (Roopnarine) had further advocated that if Dr. Jagan became President, then PPP should only take 13 percent of the seats in Parliament.

That suggestion came from the representative of a party that had a miniscule constituency in comparison with the PPP juggernaut; just as the PNC today overwhelmingly obscures the parties to which it has today aligned itself under the blanket of APNU; so one wonders what configuration it will agree to, in order to pacify the ambitious WPA twosome; because they had rejected Dr. Jagan’s suggestion of a PPP president, with Clive Thomas being Prime Minister in an all-inclusive government.
PNC loyalists may very well find themselves out in the cold if the WPA has its way, and if Granger agrees (even in a secret deal so as not to anger and/or disillusion PNC supporters prior to elections) to such a formulation, which will effectively deny longtime PNC members of their rightful places in parliament, which can happen even if they remain as the main opposition party post-elections.
According to one veteran politician, Roopnarine seems to have won over Granger to his formula, because whatever he has been offered for his collusion with the same army officer who was integral to operational planning when charismatic and idealistic WPA leader, Walter Rodney was blasted to pieces by a device supplied to him by a member of the GDF, is sufficient to disregard the violence meted out to the WPA by the PNC and now lie with that party in a bed covered with a blanket stained with the blood of WPA patriots, including that of Rodney.
Many loyal PNC supporters, already angry that, for the first time since their founder-leader, Forbes Burnham had formed the PNC, there would be no PNC, or the Party’s symbol, the palm tree, on the list of contesting parties, are further incensed because persons who never invested anything in the party, including its presidential candidate, are the leading figures in the APNU configuration. They feel abandoned, with no sense of belonging, as if the ground has been cut from under their feet.
Now this stance by the AFC, whereby it is refusing to allow the enfranchisement of many persons who may have, through the shenanigans of the leadership of the PNC over the past years, been unwilling to vote because one of their favourites, such as Vincent Alexander or Carl Greenidge, had been passed over in favour of all these newcomers and their confederation of leaders, who have effectively replaced the PNC and its leaders, are threatening their right to vote for a government of their choice.