HERE are the words of Nigel Hughes after he became leader of the AFC. “We have to re-examine what it is that we did when we were in government and how we came out of government so we don’t make the same mistakes again. You cannot talk about the future if you don’t look back, acknowledge the mistakes and then try to correct them.” But will the old heads that are back in the saddle offer an honest explanation? This is the major hurdle the AFC has to cross if it is going to secure acceptability under Nigel Hughes’ leadership.

To date, only one former AFC executive and one current AFC executive have been honest with the Guyanese people. Dominic Gaskin appeared three times on the Freddie Kissoon Show and in one of those interviews he said that the AFC lost out because the AFC sacrificed its core values for the coalition and that was the big mistake the AFC made while in government. In another interview on the same programme, he said the betrayal on the amendment to the marijuana law cost the AFC dearly while in government.
Michael Carrington, the current Vice-Chairman of the party and fourth in line in the AFC’s hierarchy has appeared five times on the Freddie Kissoon Show in which he spoke at length of the AFC’s betrayal of the Guyanese people while in government. On every occasion he was on the show, he acknowledged that the March 2020 election was legitimately won by the PPP/C.

Carrington should have been the leader of the AFC because, to date, he is the only AFC leader that has levelled with the Guyanese people. He has fulfilled his obligation to the nation. The Guyanese people cannot say Carrington was part of the 2015 cabal and supported what the AFC did while in power and had supported the attempted rigging.
David Patterson was on the show and he did not apologise for the mistakes that Gaskin and Carrington acknowledged. In fact, Patterson said that, while in government, the business community had asked them not to leave the government. He said this echo came from other sections of society. I don’t believe that for a moment. The top business people I know, including those that gave generously to the AFC personally told me that they could no longer support the AFC because in power, the AFC had betrayed everything it stood for.
Raphael Trotman is back in the saddle after staying away for years from the AFC, partially due to illness. Trotman’s name does not travel well in this country and there are questions that Trotman has to answer and if he doesn’t, then Nigel has to ask him to leave.
In February 2017, after he defeated Khemraj Ramjattan for leadership at the AFC Congress at Vreed-en-Hoop, he gave a press conference at his party head office on the Railway Embankment and told the media that after the election victory in 2015, the AFC did not allocate ministerial portfolios to him, Dominic Gaskin and Noel Holder. He said their ministerial portfolios were assigned solely by President Granger.

Gaskin repeated the AFC’s denial of a Cabinet position for him in his book, “From Destiny to Prosperity.”  Space would not allow me to quote from the book but the new leadership of the AFC has to explain this mystery in politics that has happened only one time in history and only in one country –Guyana. A man is the deputy leader of his party and his party campaign manager and his party won the election, and he is not given a minister’s job. The question is — who had the power to deny him that opportunity?
Both Patterson and Gaskin on the Freddie Kissoon Show have rejected the Cabinet denial statement by Trotman. So, who is telling the truth? Trotman is now third in line of authority in the AFC. The new leadership must explain the Trotman Cabinet mystery.

Then there is the heart-breaking story in the AFC boardroom in May 2015, after the AFC met to identify Cabinet Ministers. In the room in which all the big wigs were there, a telephone call was made to a complete stranger that did not campaign for the AFC or had anything to do with the AFC. She was offered the Ministry of the Environment while second-tier stalwarts were left shocked with their mouths wide open. Finally, in July 2020, a current executive in the AFC called for Guyana to be racially partitioned. Only Vincent Adams upbraided her.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.