Duncan, Patterson, Hughes Nominated for AFC Leader

The Alliance for Change (AFC) in a release announced its General Secretary Sherod Duncan, has received 15 nominations for Leader of the party. Following him is former government minister David Patterson and Attorney-at-law Nigel Hughes who each received two nominations. Noticeably out is incumbent Leader Attorney-at -aw and Member of Parliament (MP) Khemraj Ramjattan.  The data suggests the AFC has 19 groups.

Both Patterson and Duncan, who are MPs, ran in the previous election. Duncan ran for the post of General Secretary and Patterson for Leader. Earlier report stated Ramjattan was not likely to seek re-election. A surprise nomination is Nigel Hughes, who, in 2016 quitted his position as Chairman.

Demerara Waves (DW) reported Hughes’ nomination is not without conditionalities and having from the Party commitments “on a set of principles,” which he will outline at their conference. According to that report Hughes will communicate his view to his nominators and other decision-makers in deliberations at the conference to determine whether they agree with him there should be common programmes, involvement of civil society and constitutional reform. Further detail was not provided, however the political objective of Guyana, as expressed in Article 13 of its Constitution mandates “inclusionary democracy.” It is a mandate that continues to be ignored by the political forces.

Asked by the DW of his ambition to be the presidential “consensus” candidate for the Opposition Hughes reportedly stated “If there were sufficient people of the view that a team of us could do that, I certainly wouldn’t refuse to participate but that, again, would have to be driven by scientific data. There would have to be polls, we would have to be able to assess on the ground whether people think that the programme, the projects, the plans can be advanced by a team of people.”

Incumbent Chairman, Cathy Hughes MP is nominated. The other nominations for the post are Juretha Fernandes, Duncan and Patterson. Cathy Hughes is also nominated for Vice Chair and Secretary. Incumbent Vice Chair Ricky Ramsaroop is not nominated for his post. Ramsaroop is nominated for General Secretary, whilst the incumbent, Duncan is not nominated.  The conference is slated for June 29.

The AFC said over 285 delegates are expected to participate and scores of observers will be in attendance.