ALLIANCE For Change (AFC) executive member Raphael Trotman has warned members of that party that if they “mess up” in a government formed by that party and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), they will feel the weight of their burden.

Speaking to the media on Friday at the APNU-AFC alliance’s first press conference, Trotman, a former executive member of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), the largest party in the APNU coalition, said not even AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan will be spared feeling the weight of the burden of messing up.

While some commentators have contended that the May 11 elections will be a tight race, some have said that the chances of the APNU-AFC alliance emerging victorious are slim; but Trotman is optimistic that the grouping will prevail, and when that happens, he said, mediocrity will not prevail.

“I told a Berbice meeting yesterday (last Thursday) — I said to the people there — that Mr Khemraj Ramjattan, the first liner, the warrior that he is, if the AFC members mess up in a coalition Government, he will be moving a no-confidence motion against them,” Trotman said.

He declared that the AFC will not allow low standards from Ramjattan or any member of the party to destroy the coalition. His assertion is that the small party will never compromise its “high standards”.

Some Berbicians have, however, contended that what Trotman told them at the meeting was quite different from what he told the media on Friday. Former AFC Region Six Councillor Haseef Yusuf has accused the party’s founding leader of being a convenient speaker.

“He was so comical when he said that if the coalition does not go well, Ramjattan will move a no-confidence vote against the PNC and APNU! I cannot imagine the lengths that these people will go to fool our people in Berbice,” Yusuf said in a letter to the editor of this publication.

At the press briefing, Trotman lamented the reservation shown by some Berbicians since the announcement of the alliance. He, however, claimed that the majority of Berbicians are beginning to understand the party’s position.
Some 11,000 Berbicians voted for the AFC party in the 2011 regional and general elections.

Ramjattan was strongly against the AFC collating with APNU, and he and several party leaders in Berbice had told Berbicians that the party would never be part of the APNU coalition. But the AFC reportedly went ahead and collated with APNU without consulting its supporters in Berbice, many of whom have since deemed the move a betrayal of the promise Ramjattan and Nagamootoo had made to them.

Several senior PNCR leaders are reportedly not in agreement with the 60-40 Cabinet allocation in favour of APNU, if the APNU-AFC alliance becomes victorious at the May 11 polls.
Following announcement of the coalition, former PNCR executive member Joseph Hamilton had contended that it is bewildering that “a party with no constituency and seven seats in Parliament (AFC) would be guaranteed 12 seats in the House if the alliance wins outright at the May 11 polls”.

Hamilton is the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Parliamentary Secretary with responsibility for Health.