AFTER JAGAN IS JAGDEO

Mar 30, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

In any political dictionary of Guyana, the name Jagan has to be followed by the name Jagdeo.

With the passing of Mrs. Janet Jagan it is safe to say that we have reached the end of the Jagans’ prominence in the politics of Guyana. I do not expect that we will ever again in this country have a Jagan as a leader of Guyana.

The sway that the Jagans had held over the Peoples Progressive Party is also likely to wane.

The future of the PPP is no longer in the hands of the Jagan family. We are now in a new dispensation and the sad death of the matriarch of the party now allows for the Jagdeo faction to take total control of the Peoples Progressive Party.

The President of Guyana is already in total command of the government. Reports have even reached this newspaper that when the President is out of the country, Cabinet, the highest decision making body of the government, rarely meets.

This is quite an unusual development because traditionally the absence of the President from the country never prevented the holding of Cabinet meetings.

The news of the death of Forbes Burnham on the operating table at the Georgetown Hospital came to ministers during a Cabinet meeting.

The then Prime Minister Desmond Hoyte learnt of his leader’s passing while chairing a Cabinet meeting. So even though the Comrade Leader was undergoing surgery, the Cabinet still met.

Now it seems that the wheels of government are slowed down every time the President is out of the country and in these days this is more often than not.

There needs to be some explanation as to why Cabinet meets so infrequently while the President is out of the country, despite there being an acting President.

Even when it came to relaying the news of Mrs. Jagan’s death there was a great deal of delay. Guyanese woke up on Saturday morning to rumors that the former President had passed away early that morning.

However, it was not until much later in the day, in fact until after lunch that definitive confirmation of her death came through the State-owned television airing of tributes to her.

It is left to speculate as to why the actual tributes took so long in coming. It was also disconcerting to note that only one other television station broke its coverage to offer extended coverage of the news of the parting of a former President.

This was extremely disappointing. When Gerald Forde and Rickhard Nixon, former presidents of the United States of America, passed on, there were immediate breaks of television coverage and many of the major networks immediately went to offer extended reports and tributes to the former Presidents.

It was shocking to note that as of Saturday evening, there were only a few features being broadcast about Mrs. Jagan and these were almost entirely on NCN.

It is good to learn however that Mrs. Jagan would be accorded a State funeral. She deserves that. It was also announced that until her funeral nightly wakes would be held at Freedom House.

The headquarters of the ruling party is not going to be the same anymore. Mrs. Jagan’s death has created a void within the party that has ramifications for the future of that party and for the future of this country.

It has long been felt that so long as Mrs. Jagan was alive, it would have been impossible for the question of a third term of the President to arise.

Despite the fact that there was reportedly a motion at the last Congress of the PPP asking for consideration of this matter, it was felt that so long as the matriarch of the party was alive this would never be allowed to happen.

With the passing of Mrs. Jagan, the door is now open for the supporters of President Jagdeo to seize control of the party machinery and to press the case for a third term for the President.

The President is clearly in command of the government and with Mrs. Jagan out of the way there is no reason why his supporters may not extend that control to the affairs of the party, which, as has been argued recently in another column, has very little influence on the workings of the government.

There are those who may be worrying about this possibility and who are likely in the days ahead to speak about the need for unity now that the matriarch of the party is gone.

It is a myth that Mrs. Jagan held the party together. Very few parties are held together by personalities; often it is the common interests of the leadership that is more decisive in welding the party together rather than any one person.

The loss of someone who has been around for a long time and who has been an influential fixture in the party is bound to be felt. But that loss will not weaken the party.

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