Nagamootoo responsible for downfall of AFC – resigned party member

Former Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo is said to be the reason for the downfall of the Alliance For Change (AFC). Former AFC executive member Abel Seetaram, who tendered his resignation from the party on Tuesday, made this declaration.
According to Seetaram, the former prime minister was focused only on power, “and threw all of the values which the party stood for out of the window in order to achieve his objective.”
“The party made him the elder statesman of the party. In 2019, the party decided who it wanted as the prime ministerial candidate. Moses Nagamootoo did not endorse what the party wants. Moses chaired Cabinet and allowed decisions to be taken at Cabinet that hampered the lives of thousands of sugar workers. The downfall of the AFC is Moses Nagamootoo,” Seetaram told Guyana Times.
According to the former Councillor on the Region Five (Mahaica/Berbice) Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC), the party was crippled when a decision was taken to join the coalition.
“Look at what he (Nagamootoo) did to the sugar workers, and we did not see him back in Berbice since, except him going to Whim to fancy himself. He did not go to meet the sugar workers because he had power,” Seetaram said, adding that the AFC was formed to represent the people, but lost its way.
In his resignation letter on Tuesday, Seetaram said the AFC party has been unable to make its own decisions since coalescing with A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) in 2015.
Seetaram claims that, for five years, members of the party had been silent and its leadership had failed to address matters that are important to the party’s general membership. He also claims the party’s leadership had allowed the APNU/PNC to trample them without voicing their concerns.
Seetaram’s resignation comes on the heels of another senior party member, Gobin Harbhajan, resigning. They have both claimed that since the AFC had coalesced with APNU, the AFC had become voiceless. However, it took Seetaram almost six years to decide that the AFC was not an organisation he wanted to be associated with.
Speaking with this publication after tendering his resignation, Seetaram said his decision to leave the party was made after he realised that the party no longer had the political will to carry on.
Seetaram related several instances wherein the agreement between the two coalition partners had been breached and the AFC hierarchy had remained silent.
In September, following a dispute over the election of a Vice Chairman for the Region Four Regional Democratic Council (RDC), AFC General Secretary David Patterson had tendered his resignation as General Secretary.
Sources had indicated that Patterson may have taken this step after coalition partner A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), which has a history of infringements against the smaller parties, had locked the AFC out of the Vice Chair position despite a previous agreement that Patterson had helped craft, which, according to reports, had stipulated that the AFC would get the Vice Chair positions in Regions Seven and Four. But following the election of the APNU candidate, former Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Captain Daniel Seeram, it was not to be.
AFC had nominated Neilson McKenzie for the Vice Chairman position, APNU had nominated Samuel Sandy, and the PPP had nominated Desmond Morian. Voting was along party lines, as APNU and PPP each cast their 14 votes for their candidates, and the AFC, with its five votes, backed McKenzie. Seeram then used his deciding vote to elect Sandy.
Since the time that it came into office after joining forces with the APNU in 2015, the minority AFC has been criticised for the submissive role it has been playing to the abusive APNU. (G4)