THERE are two ways a political party’s leadership can conduct an inquiry into its deportment. One is for its brand new leadership to feel that it has to make itself accountable to win back national credibility, so it will investigate the wrong things its previous leadership did.
In this situation, the organisation’s task will be onerous because the alleged wrong-doers would have gone and will refuse to cooperate. What happens then is that the party’s new hierarchy will have to seek out information from party members who were witnesses to the misbehaviour over the years and who were not sycophants of the old order. Documents left behind by the old order can also provide useful information.

The second method of inquiry is situational, meaning that the party is investigating a situation that occurred where one of its big wigs or a group of important leaders fell below standards or is alleged to have committed an illegal or immoral act. In this case, a part of the leadership is investigating another part of the leadership because the consensus inside the party is that such an inquiry is needed to prevent a reoccurrence. This second type of inquiry is as common as the perennial grass and occurs with increasing frequency all over the world.
What the AFC is proposing as announced recently is comical, stupid and lacks commonsense. The AFC has decided that it will carry out an internal probe as to how the party reacted to the 2020 election to ascertain what it did do and did not do. How does this bizarre inquiry differ from the two types I listed above?

First, there is no new leadership in the AFC that wants to put on record the mistake the previous hegemonic players made. What the AFC announced is that the AFC itself will be investigating itself. In other words, the current executive will be examining each other’s conduct during the 2020 general election. Secondly, the AFC’s probe into an investigation into the party itself and not a section of the party that has committed an indiscretion.

This becomes comical because John has to give evidence of what Sunil did, and Mary will have to give evidence of what Sita did. The asininity lies in creation of a pantomime in that Sita, Sunil, Mary and John have done the identical thing, so what are they giving evidence about? And what they will be doing makes a mockery of human action because they all believe in what they did together and there is no disagreement.

The current management committee and executive of the AFC are the same people who were involved in participating and supporting efforts to change the election results, with one exception, current Deputy Chairman, Michael Carrington, who was there in 2020 and admits that things were done by the AFC in the 2020 election that were wrong. Will these people be the ones conducting the inquiry?

Let us, for the sake of argument, say that the AFC will hire an outside body to carry out the task. But the same asininity will result because the current first-tier and second-tier leadership in the AFC has a pyrotechnical unity of perspective – the APNU+AFC won the 2020 poll.
This is what they are going to tell the external examiners, so what purpose will the investigation serve? Nigel Hughes says and I quote: “I am not saying that we will not find faults but when we have completed that process… what we did and didn’t do during the 2020 election, then we can have a discussion on that apology…you are asking me to prejudge what the AFC is going to find in its investigation….”

I think those words are pellucid and unambiguous – an investigation will be done. But an investigation has investigators and investigators ask questions. Who will be the persons summoned to answer questions and questions about what? Let’s be specific. What David Patterson, the General Secretary in 2020, is going to tell the panel about his role? What is Raphael Trotman, leader in 2020, is going to say about his role? And the list goes on.

The curious thing is that we are one year away from another general election and only Michael Carrington has spoken about wrong things the AFC did in the March 2020 election. Why we are to expect the current leadership of the AFC is going to have a change of heart and admit that the results showed the ANPU AFC lost? Nothing in recent politics has been more comical than a political party going around asking each hierarchical member what he/she did on election night in 2020 when, in fact, what they did, they did together. “All are consumed. All are involved” – Martin Carter
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.