…in the AFC?
Political commentator and former House Speaker Ralph Ramkarran had some advice for the AFC, which has been used and discarded by the PNC/APNU like a used tissue with snot: resign their Ministries and become backbenchers on the Government side. Is he kidding? Having been in the PPP with Nagamootoo and Ramjattan (hereafter N&R) for long donkey years, does he really believe those two fellas would give up their titles, money and perks to make a point?
And what exactly is that point, since, to begin with, he knows the two of them have lacked backbones? Maybe Ramkarran believes even a worm can turn? Sure, they can…but that doesn’t mean they’ve developed backbones. They’ll just keep on being mendicants for their personal “good life”. N&R had two and a half years to experience the humiliations heaped upon their heads by the PNC in their “coalition” arrangement. If they could put up with that, they’ll put up with even more for another two years. Have no doubt about that!
Just look at the very best threat N&R could come up with: They’re demanding the Cummingsburg Accord be renegotiated!! This is all a bluff, since the Accord has a sunset clause; meaning it expires on Midnight Feb 13, 2018, when the AFC’s supposed to ride into the sunset!! What’ll happen is: the AFC will huff and puff, but they ain’t blowing any PNC/APNU house down. With Ramjattan and Nagamootoo both lawyers, what respect even Basil Williams, the PNC lawyer, has for them when they negotiated for Nagamootoo as PM to Chair Cabinet meetings.
Didn’t they see the gaping hole they left for Prezzie to renege on the ground the Constitution doesn’t permit that? Didn’t they realise the Cummingsburg Accord’s just a gentleman’s agreement, and the PNC ain’t no “gentleman”! When APNU delved (say, on Prezzie’s unilateralism) and AFC span (by approving), who then was the gentleman??!! What cards exactly N&R have to play? The fabled 11% from Berbice? That’s long gone, baby!!
And the leader of the AFC is now Trotman – whose Nassau Accord has been given full recognition. As he declared when Hoyte had recruited him into the PNC, his mission was to “oppose, expose and depose” the PPP, and his AFC detour was just a gambit to achieve that. He’s back home, and he’s been made very comfortable, thank you!! The man’s been given power (Czar of oil, baby!!) and perks! The wife was a bonus!!
The only way they can exert some leverage is to withhold support from APNU in the National Assembly, as Ramkarran advised.
But that ain’t happening because of the lack of the aforementioned vertebral columns!!
…on “little things”?
A sign of that invertebrate status of N&R was exemplified in Nagamootoo’s column in the Chronic last Sunday. Yes…this was the job given to him after all the hullabaloo of Cummingsburg!! So imagine: with the walls of the AFC edifice crumbling all around him because of the anti-democratic decisions and positions of N&R and other leaders, all Nagamootoo could write was about the Budget presented yesterday!!
And what was so earth-shaking about the Budget that he had to ignore the wreckage around him? That there are many “little things” for us little people?!! Like fixing street lights, fixing potholes and getting birth certificates? And the “big things”, like hydro-power that could transform the economy so as to make those “little things” a thing of the past? Nagamootoo says “street folks are not glued” to them!! Can you believe this?
But your Eyewitness knows that Nagamootoo — who boasts about spending 50 years at the feet of Cheddi Jagan — isn’t as daft as that.
He’s just protecting his perks!
…in the Police
The long knives are drawn to prune the top layer of the Police Force in the desired image. Meaning pliant and supplicant!
No matter how they cut it or slice it, the Police Chief has been given the boot!
