AFC saw me as ‘fit and proper’ to be next Prime Minister – Ramjattan

The current Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan Saturday evening said that he was deemed by his Party as “fit and proper” and so he was endorsed as the new Prime Ministerial candidate for general elections under a Coalition arrangement with APNU.

The current Prime Minister, Moses Nagamootoo, left the venue before the show of hands by a majority of the delegates at the party’s biennial conference to endorse Ramjattan.

The new General Secretary David Patterson, who was elected Saturday, suggested there was no possibility of APNU not accepting Ramjattan; he said the Accord, which the multi-party bloc APNU signed with the AFC on February 14, 2015, remains in place and the parties to the Coalition are bound by it.

Patterson said the Accord is for 60 months; there was an option for either party to review or cancel the Accord after 30 months, but neither the AFC nor APNU chose to do that, so the Accord remains in place, he stated.

That Accord provides for the AFC to put forward the Prime Ministerial Candidate for general elections.

Ramjattan told reporters that during the discussions on the motion to endorse him as the Prime Ministerial Candidate, he was asked searing questions on job creation, constitutional reform and other matters. He said he thought he gave good answers to the questions.

Ramjattan said Mr Nagamootoo was “most gracious” about the motion. Ramjattan said Mr Nagamootoo has been his lifetime mentor and he holds him “in tremendously high esteem.”

“He came across and gave me a hug,” Ramjattan said.

According to Patterson, Mr Nagamootoo retains his role as Elder Statesman of the Party.

The AFC National Conference was attended by 293 delegates and observers, both local and overseas.