CLEARLY, the highly negative response to the news that AFC has dissolved itself into APNU has sent the AFC and its accolades into a frenzy to look for something to distract people and to find something it can view as positive. The efforts by some of their media sympathisers to misread and misinterpret my highly critical statement a few days ago is merely clutching at straws. I am willing to accept that ‘News Source’ and others merely misinterpreted what I stated. If, indeed, this is the case then they will end this matter by accepting my quite clear reiteration of the facts. The following are the facts:

First, I intend to vote early on May 11th for the PPP/C and Donald Ramotar. Unless I die before this, nothing will change this reality. ONLY DEATH WILL STOP ME FROM DOING THIS AS MY DUTY FOR MY COUNTRY. This election is more than re-electing the PPP/C. It is about keeping Guyana on the trajectory of development and accelerating that development. Only the PPP/C can keep Guyana on this path, a pathway that we crafted. I have to ensure that I do everything for us to accomplish this because APNU and the AFC will take Guyana down a different road, a road traveled before that brought pain, shame and sufferings for our people.

The AFC has self-imploded. The hunger for power has so blinded them that they walked into a cloud that has ingested them and end the AFC history. So Cummingsburg Accord is the AFC’s obituary.

Second, I intend to campaign as hard as is humanly possible to ensure another PPP/C resounding victory. Our goal as the PPP/C is to win the 2015 elections with a significantly clear majority. This majority is necessary to stop the AFC and APNU from blackmail politics and from punishing ordinary citizens just to take vengeance on the PPP/C. We need to regain the majority so that we can stop power-hungry politicians like those in the AFC from sacrificing Guyana’s development for their own obsession with power.
Third, the AFC leadership deliberately lied to the people of Guyana and most specifically their supporters. They unambiguously made a commitment to their supporters that they will never join a coalition with APNU and if for some reason there is an alliance it will be under their leadership. They were as clear as I am that the only possibility to form a coalition was if the AFC was in the leadership. They barefacedly lied to the people. They betrayed their supporters and then abandoned them. Ramjattan’s pitiful explanation that it was a negotiation ploy is every reason why their supporters should be even more upset. They were made pawns in a game of deception, a game that both APNU and the AFC are adept at. It demonstrated that all they were interested in is to grab as much as they could get. Their supporters were expendable.
Fourth, the truth, known by many of us for a long time, is that APNU and AFC were engaged in a major game of deception for a very long time now. They deceived their supporters into believing that the coalition was born overnight; but this unholy alliance was a reality since before the 2011 elections.
In 2011, they worked as SEPARATE BUT ONE. Then the strategy was that AFC will focus their entire attention to PPP/C areas of strength. That strategy did not defeat the PPP/C. Now in 2015, they decided that the time to end the deception is now – from SEPARATE BUT ONE, they now will face the electorate with the veil lifted as ONE AND THE SAME. Finally they are all where they belong – under the camp of the PNC.
Fifth, the AFC has self-imploded. The hunger for power has so blinded them that they walked into a cloud that has ingested them and end the AFC history. So Cummingsburg Accord is the AFC’s obituary.
These were the sentiments that I previously expressed and these are still my sentiments. To those who chose to use the social media to promote lies that I think there is even a slight bit of positive news in the move by APNU and AFC, let me make it clear that I do not see even for a fraction of a second any such positive news about the alliance. The truth is that APNU, AFC or the APNU/AFC coalition are equally bad news for Guyana and the people will reject them on May 11th.
Even if I were to accept that it was merely misunderstanding what I stated before, then hopefully now those who created an impression that I think anything good about this alliance would have no doubt about how I feel.

(By Dr. Leslie Ramsammy)