Is the rift between Jagdeo and the PPP aimed at splitting the party so a new guard can emerge?

Jan 11, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,

For some time now I have been saying in my letters that the President seems to be operating from a different plan than the PPP, but what definitely confirmed this was his shocking public put down of the late Janet Jagan, who had openly disagreed with his government’s decision to withdraw state ads from SN. When asked at a press conference what he thought of the party matriarch’s call to reverse the SN ads withdrawal, he brusquely said she was just an ordinary citizen.

That was followed by the dismissal of the late Joseph O’Lall as head honcho of the Guyana Energy Authority. O’Lall, it would later be revealed, was a senior PPP functionary who, from all appearances, seemed deeply disappointed that the PPP did not stand up to the President on his behalf over the dismissal. There were also other incidents that served as tell tale signs of a crack at the highest level of the party, including the fact that the President’s much vaunted Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) lacked public involvement of the PPP in helping to spread or promote this novel concept among Guyanese at the grassroots level. But the latest incident is the still to be publicly explained official reason for the dismissal of presidential science advisor and leading PPP member, Mr. Navin Chandrapaul.

It still is not clear what the President’s motivation in all this is, but there are two schools of thought on this strange behaviour. The first says that he is trying to carve out a political niche as a self-made political leader who does not need to conform to the thinking or wishes of the old guard in the PPP. The other says that while the first school of thought is true, the aim is much bigger: to take absolute control of the PPP by ousting the old guard and heading up a renegade new guard. Time only will reveal which is true.

Meanwhile, I don’t have the vote count for executives of the PPP at the party’s last congress, but from the little I recall that there is no current party executive who topped the President, and that may well have been the most potent signal to him and every other PPP presidential contender that he is the man to beat if he is to be blocked from winning the top seat. Besides, when we look at the names of the most likely contenders – Messrs. Donald Ramotar, Ralph Ramkarran and Moses Nagamootoo – none of them comes across as political heavyweights capable of pulling off an upset.

Mr. Ramotar, the PPP General Secretary, said last recently he would consider it an honour if asked by the party to be its presidential candidate, but if you ask me, I think the President is holding Mr. Ramotar’s trump card. The same Mr. Ramotar sat on the GuySuCo board in 2008 when allegations surfaced of impropriety involving money spent by board members, resulting in the President ordering his Agriculture Minister to investigate. Does the public know the outcome of that investigation? Moreover, Mr. Ramotar sat on the GuySuCo board in 2008 when the company recorded a GY$3 billion loss due to persistent industrial strikes and the failure of the Chinese to complete the Skeldon Plant. That GAWU, a PPP union, could be striking against a government-owned entity serves as yet another incident of the PPP and government operating from different pages.

Mr. Ramkarran, son of a PPP legend, appeared to be a likely presidential contender when his named surfaced amidst reports he was Mrs. Jagan’s first choice to replace her deceased husband. The same reports also said that Mr. Nagamootoo objected and that led to President Jagdeo being the compromise candidate. At the last PPP congress, Mr. Ramkarran fared horribly when he failed to get the number of votes that could have pole vaulted him over the top as the shoo-in contender, and some news reports indicated he felt his poor showing was the result of an orchestrated effort to shut him down. If anything, he may well be best remembered as the longest serving PPP House Speaker.

Mr. Nagamootoo, for all practical intents and purposes, seemed to think he was next in line after Cheddi Jagan passed, but he had to be politically naïve not to read the political tea leaves in the party to know that Mrs. Jagan was ‘the hand that rocked the party’. To go against her was to ruin your destiny under her. As upstanding as he may be, he demonstrated a lack of political cunning and courage needed to survive the political jungle where survival of the fittest sometimes comes down to political family members turning on their own, and if you cannot survive and succeed among your own, you likely won’t survive and succeed against an enemy that has proven he is capable of turning against his own just to survive in the hope of succeeding in his dream of shared governance.

With the obvious weaknesses of the foregoing three potential contenders, and the strong showing of the President as a vote getter at the party’s last congress, it is becoming crystal clear why certain people – including Pandit Reepu Daman Persaud – are openly going against the political grain of the PPP by agitating for the President to vie for a third term. But to get a third term means the President either must hijack the PPP from the old guard (if the old guard resists his efforts), or offer a deal to the major parliamentary opposition for it to hold cabinet posts, including the prime ministership, in exchange for parliamentary support to amend the Constitution so he can serve a third term. Bluntly put, right now the President needs Parliament more than he does the PPP to get a third term. Otherwise he has a remote option: engineer a crisis and then manipulate existing constitutional provisions via executive orders to extend his presidency. Whatever option he chooses, one thing is clear: the friction between him and the PPP is real.

The PPP, for its part, did a terrible job at damage control when it released a statement in response to some purported past and current PPP members who took out a newspaper ad remonstrating over the dismissal of Mr. Chandrapaul and urging the PPP to take a stand against what the signatories saw as problematic moves by the government. Rather than recognising that its own members, as well as members of the wider public, have been talking about the President’s disconcerting remarks and actions, the party decided to put up a front that it is united and that the folks behind the ad do not represent the official voice of the party. How much more disconnected than this can the PPP get? People are actually challenging the President’s behaviour and the PPP without a care in the world ‘disses’ them? The PPP may well be in for a shock in 2011 if it continues to ignore reality.

I know that 2011 may seem a far way off, but in politics, real time is never the basis for political action, because the fluid nature of politics can cause any number of major and surprising changes that could make one wonder if so much happened in such a short space of time. And because the main political opposition – which is supposed to be keeping the President and his government in check – has been pretty much ineffective against a regime capable of executing major political changes ahead, Guyanese now have to be vigilant and vocal about any attempt by politicians to circumvent or manipulate the constitution or the rule of law to achieve their personal and political goals.

Ironically, the only thing that matches the President’s excesses in office is the PNC’s ineffectiveness as the main opposition, and so one has every right to ask if this ineffectiveness is not part of a general plan hatched between the President and the PNC Leader, in which they both will seek to seize control of their respective political parties on their way to shared governance. This is not that farfetched given the fact that despite the ineffectiveness of the PNC against the President, Mr. Robert Corbin could have still strong-armed his way to stop the quest by Mr. Vincent Alexander to lead the party and then put extra muscle in his hustle to stop Mr. Winston Murray, who was backed by Dr. Richard Van West Charles and other leading PNC figures. Mr. Corbin’s insatiable desire to hold on to the PNC leadership position despite being ineffective as opposition leader can only be fueled by one thing: the powerful hope of a promise of shared governance. Mr. Corbin has already secured his spot; will President Jagdeo manage to secure his? Time only will tell.

Emile Mervin

 

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