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The fall of two kings; the PPP and sugar

Feb 01, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Once Burnham was in Government, Cheddi Jagan was a king. Once the PNC was an unelected government, Cheddi Jagan, was a king. Once the PNC ruled Guyana even with Hoyte’s openness, the PPP was a king.

The East Indian communities didn’t want to hear about the failure of Jagan and the PPP because the PNC didn’t allow them to vote for the party of their choice and the PNC were doing undemocratic things.

Here was an opposition leader whose flaws and faults were monumental and who would have been toppled in many other countries over his incredible inflexibilities but he remained a hero in the eyes of his people because of a bad government that ruled the day.

Once the PNC went out, Jagan and his congenitally mediocre underlings would have been hard-pressed to retain the admiration of their supporters.

As early as 1993, Jagan, now President, went to his party congress in Port Mourant and proclaimed his unmovable faith in Marxism-Leninism. This time, the Indians didn’t have Burnham and the PNC to obfuscate the ignorance of their great leader.

The Indians had welcomed the return of capitalism and the West back in Guyana. They weren’t going to buy into Jagan and his communist nonsense at the end of the 21st century.

The country folks also read the Stabroek News and in 1993 the Stabroek News tore into President Jagan for his morbid obsession with communism. His nonsense was more frightening than when he was in opposition for 28 years. In 1993, he was President of Guyana. The Stabroek News criticism not only stung hotly but the Indians weren’t prepared to return to the sixties.

From the time the criticism of Jagan over what he said at that 1993 Congress began to be digested, Jagan toned down his communist fanaticism. He knew disaster was around the corner because his great helper, Forbes Burnham and the PNC were no longer there to be cited as the bogey man.

Had President Jagan lived beyond 1997, he would have been despised by those who for so long thought he was their hero. As President, he refused to abolish the Sugar Levy that he told sugar workers to burn down GuySuCo over because it was Burnham’s imposition over the Indians.

They heeded his call, struck for 132 days in 1977 and torched several sugar estates. Yet their hero was President in 1993 and had no interest in removing the Sugar Levy. The world of President was falling apart. All around him, his communist protégés, now in power, were stealing money like when a crab dances in the mud.

The expatriates Guyanese that he urged back home began to leave calling Jagan a bungling incompetent. This hero of the Indians put his chauffeur as a member of the Coop Bank Board and his cronies began to appear in some of the most important positions in the State, the worst being a man who knew absolutely nothing about trade matters as our High Commission to Canada.

The consensus was that Jagan’s heart gave way because he couldn’t control the monster of corruption that had devoured his party. It could be argued that he was facing humiliation because his heroic status was beginning to wane and that too took its toll on his heart.

Today, constant research is revealing that Cheddi Jagan was a political failure. After sixteen years in power, the PPP is deeply disliked by this nation with bad-mouthing of its leaders an occurrence you hear in the most devout districts of PPPism.

The scandals, venalities, secrets, corrupt practices, mediocrities have overwhelmed this nation. The PPP supporters are running all over the world, four of them being found living in a large pen originally designed as a dog house in Barbados where they went to work as carpenters.

Make no mistake, Indians vote race. They vote against PNC and not for the leaders of the PPP. If Guyana had the plurality/constituency system (first past the post), many of its detestable candidates would have been chased out the towns and villages of this country. The king has fallen and he has taken with him, the other king, sugar.

When President Hoyte imported sugar from Guatemala, they ridiculed him. They said then that the PNC couldn’t run GuySuCo. They have taken over GuySuCo sixteen years now and Hoyte has had the last laugh. Who can run GuySuCo? Certainly not the PPP. Sugar is in deep trouble. Can it survive? It is doubtful that King Sugar can retain his throne.

All the talk about late crop is crap. The sugar industry is falling. Maybe it fell long before the decision was taken to get help from Guatemala.

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