THE leadership crisis within the small Alliance For Change (AFC) opposition party remained unresolved after a one-day meeting of its National Executive Committee (NEC) which went into late Saturday night.
The NEC was expected to have decided on whether current leader Raphael Trotman or chairman Khemraj Ramjattan would be its presidential candidate for the 2011 general elections, but the party said in a press release Saturday night that this has been put back to later this year.
“Regional and international party groups were officially mandated to nominate candidates for the Presidential and Prime Ministerial positions, after which the NEC will make recommendations to its National Conference scheduled for later in the year”, the AFC reported.
It said the “recommended criteria” for selection for candidates from the sub committee tasked with identifying the slate of candidates were unanimously adopted, but it did not give details of the criteria.
The party said the NEC also “reaffirmed its total commitment to forging compatible alliances”.
Insiders said the AFC has been split into two rival camps backing Trotman and Ramjattan in a leadership division closely mirroring that which has left the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) in disarray.
The PNCR has been split into several camps over repeated challenges to Mr. Robert Corbin’s leadership; and the AFC, which emerged from Trotman’s defection from the PNCR, is heading down the same road, sources projected.
At the centre of the growing AFC rift is whether Ramjattan should assume leadership of the party and be its presidential candidate for next year’s general elections in keeping with an agreement on rotating the leadership.
AFC insiders said Trotman’s backers want him to stay at the helm and lead the party into the elections but those supporting Ramjattan are opposing the bid.
Another senior party member, Michael Carrington, last week announced that he too wanted to be presidential candidate.
The NEC said the AFC came out of Saturday’s meeting committed to the “principle of rotation of its top two candidates for the 2011 election bid.”
It said that in the interest of maintaining ethnic harmony within the party, it also agreed to put in place a standing panel to deal with issues related to ethnic relations, diversity, ethics and compliance for members within the AFC.
The panel will adhere to the AFC’s founding principles and promote sustainable unification of all Guyanese people, it said.
Trotman is a former senior PNCR member who defected to form his own party while Ramjattan is a defector from the governing People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C).
Another PNCR defector, Peter Ramsaroop, was up to recently a senior member of the AFC leadership but he resigned and is being investigated for allegedly spying through concealed cameras on a teenaged female tenant in an apartment building he owns in Queenstown, Georgetown.