ON Friday, the Alliance For Change briefed the media about its National Conference, which was planned, for this month.

Outgoing General-Secretary, David Patterson, was quick to say that there are several reasons for this delay in holding the National Conference. He said the “conference will be held” and there was no interest in “delaying” it.

Patterson also said the AFC “was trying to find a method during these COVID-19 times to host more than 400 persons” for the delegates-only conference. He explained that the AFC has looked at a mixed hybrid system with members logging on virtually and other options to host the event.

Patterson, did commit to having the conference in August stressing, that “there is no attempt by the leadership” in putting it off for longer.
This explanation is rubbish and an attempt by Patterson to trick the membership of the AFC. There is no need to ‘kerfuffle” anyone.

Firstly, Patterson had two years to prepare the party for its conference. Nothing was done. Even this year, the AFC had time to plan a COVID-19 compliant event, but they did nothing significant until recently. And they were not short on funding or a venue after it was booted from the government to make it a reality. Why wait until now to make the announcement? Why not make the announcement in June when it was likely that there would not be an AFC National Conference?

Secondly, all is not well in the AFC political camp. The party structures are crumbling. Joel Edmond, Abel Seetaram, Vladimir Glasgow, Michael Leonard, Reynard Ward, and a whole number of the AFC faces have resigned.

Party groups are in chaos as the membership wants to go down a different path than their counterpart in the APNU. But the current AFC National Executive is trying to keep those members with a dissenting view from speaking out.

And this is so because the members are going their separate ways since the party changed unilaterally the way it makes decisions. The party superstructure is controlled by a big six, namely Khemraj Ramjattan, David Patterson, Raphael Trotman, Cathy Hughes and Moses Nagamootoo. The other members are reportedly “collateral damage” or puppets that will secure the vote.

Thirdly, there may be a ‘wait and see’ approach taken by the current AFC leadership. As you know, the PNC is currently fighting a battle between those who support David Granger and Volda Lawrence for the leadership. AFC is strategic in putting off its conference or delaying until its partner has some semblance of calm and predictability.

The AFC knows its alliance with the APNU and the PNC is fragile since it didn’t honour its side of the vow in 2011. And, the AFC does not have the strength to stand on its own in numbers or form in 2021. It needs to piggyback on the APNU, which is already standing on the PNC’s strength.

Finally, Patterson needs to come clean about the real reason behind the decision to postpone the AFC National Congress. Blaming the pandemic guidelines and restrictions is becoming an old line and has been used already by its partner.

The AFC does not have the numbers to show. It cannot bank on its old cliché of being able to steal supporters and members of the ruling PPP/C. Nagamootoo has no control over Berbicians anymore because his APNU+AFC Government did not live up to the promises made to the sugar workers, farmers and working-class people of this country.

The Big Six group is scared of facing the public and the criticism of its relationship with the APNU alliance because few of their members who held ministerial responsibility did not do anything towards improving the party directly or the country. The AFC as a party, according to its pre-2015 stance, is “dead meat”. Maybe, it should not keep its conference because the AFC lacks the individuality to be considered Guyana’s third force.