WHEN the political story of Guyana is told, the name Alliance For Change (AFC) will have a prominent place in the body of the story. I believe the contributions of the AFC are more than a footnote. Today, the AFC is in a dark political corner, but it had its heydays in the bright sunshine.
At the time when AFC was formed, the party was beckoned, cajoled, and wheedled into formation. There were overwhelming sentiments among the population that a political “third force” is necessary. To put it another way, there was a growing incorporeal yearning for small-party politics. There were pervasively growing sentiments that the two big parties were more and more pursuing party self interest in ways that were neglecting the needs of the people. This sentiment created a general political chasm, but this chasm was largest in the urban middleclass. The urban middleclass poured money into getting the AFC started as a vehicle to advance their own class interest.
In the political cosmos of Guyana, the stars were aligned for the entrance of a third party. Raphael Trotman, Khemraj Ramjattan and Sheila Holder came over as credible, bearing flavours of the PPP, PNC, and civil society. They were palatable to the political taste in the countryside and in the urban centres. The AFC was ushered into Guyana with much goodwill and fanfare.
The often untold stories of the rise of the AFC are the several supporting casts who left the PPP and the PNC to follow Ramjattan and Trotman. I believe politicians were not as enterprising as they are today. If they were, I believe there would have been a notable migration from both parties to the AFC.
In the early days, the AFC was housed in a building at Lime and Hadfield Streets, Werk-en-Rust, then later moved to Cummings and First Streets, Albertown. I was there many days and saw known activists of both the PPP and the PNC visiting to congratulate the founders of the AFC, and, no doubt, to explore opportunities to be part of the party. Many of those activists wanted AFC leaders to make prominent space for them to switch parties. The attitude of the AFC leaders was that they were not prepared to issue guarantees. For example, I overheard a conversation between Raphael Trotman and a senior member and MP of the PNC. Trotman told him that he has to come to the AFC of his own volition and participate in party building activities, not based on any political promise. He also did not want to be accused of poaching PNC members. Ultimately, many of those who flirted with the idea ended up staying with their respective parties. It is my view, based on what I saw with my own two eyes, back in 2005, activists and voters alike did not feel as politically free spirited as they do these days. If that were the case, both parties would’ve suffered bigger losses with the formation of the AFC.
The AFC also attracted a brand-new group of activists; people who had no political connections or political experience but had the same aforementioned incorporeal yearning for third-party politics. AFC emerged as a third-force, and even though the leaders were essentially pursuing middle-class interest, it wasn’t recognisable, because so many ordinary people flocked the party, and the founders were able to mask their middle-class pursuits. The presence of Khemraj Ramjattan and, later, Moses Nagamootoo was instrumental to the party’s not being seen as a rank Mulatto-Creole Middleclass party. This initial organic convergence of ordinary people also served to mask the AFC’s middleclass ethos. In several cases, acting on their own political yearning, ordinary people in many parts of the country formed themselves into groups and invited the party to recognise them. During the first months of the party, the founders hardly had time for their families and normal professional pursuits, as ordinary people would literally demand their time and attention.
There was another often untold dimension to the start of the AFC that helped to make its early days spectacular. Its diaspora support, Queens, New York was the source of a lot of funding for the AFC. Many of those who were known PPP supporters became strong AFC financiers. In fact, Queens was a ‘cash cow’ for the AFC. I have heard rumours that the party received large contributions from the US State Department, but I do not know anything about that and cannot offer any meaningful insights.
So, the AFC had several things going for it that made its rise as resplendent as it was:
1: There was a strong Third Force political wind blowing across the country;
2: A strong middleclass buy-in;
3: Good local and diaspora funding; 4: Leaders who were considered credible;
5: Rapid sprout of many small groups in all ten regions together with groups in key overseas regions with large Guyanese population. Though this needs more discussion and contextualising, it may be worth mentioning that AFC also benefitted from some PNC infighting.
Prior to the 2025 elections, when many dismissed Azruddin as another CN Sharma who would not have any major returns at the polls, I had on occasion remarked on the Freddie Kissoon Show that I did not subscribe to that view. My reason was that I saw a similar response to Azruddin as I saw when the AFC was formed, and I thought that that would count for something on Elections Day. The WIN party had all the ingredients of the AFC, except for two areas which must be contextualised: 1. Azruddin was self-funded from what seemed like a bottomless vault of cash from questionable sources, and 2. In the traditional sense, though Azruddin was not considered credible, he found wide acceptance among several shady characters, ordinary inner-city folks and some Indigenous villages.
A few paragraphs up, I mentioned that at the advent of the AFC, both activists and voters were not as enterprising as they are today. I believe the AFC made a large contribution to setting this in motion. AFC showed both supporters of the PPP and PNC that the two major ethnicities could have vote convergence for the same party, and that they can each vote outside their traditional pattern without feeling they are infidels to their respective ethnic cultures. AFC contributed to breaking down some hardlines and creating a block of voters that essentially demonstrated estrangement characteristics from their traditional parties. In 2006, the PNC had big losses, and in 2011, the PPP had big losses at the polls. Guyana now has a larger group of migratory voters than it had twenty years ago. Both the PPP and the PNC has to worry about this phenomenon when planning for future elections; more than they did prior to the AFC.