Mr. Ralph Ramkarran protected his party’s image instead of promoting the people’s interests

Jul 23, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
If Mr. Ralph Ramkarran was just another PPP executive member with an eye on the 2011 presidency, I wouldn’t bother reacting to his recent public remarks about running for the office if his party nominates him.
However, Mr. Ramkarran is not just another PPP executive; he is the Speaker of the National Assembly, which is one of the three branches of government set up to serve as part of the checks and balance process, and he has failed the people of Guyana in the execution of his duties as House Speaker to ensure the legislative branch helped keep the executive branch in check or even help the judicial branch to function at its optimum.
He can say all he wants about trying to keep faith with the PPP as it was run by the late Cheddi and Janet Jagan, perhaps to woo the party’s ethnic-based constituency who may still be enamored by memories of the late founder-leaders, but in a multi-racial country like Guyana where people are gradually waking up to the realisation that race-based politics has not delivered on the economy or racial harmony under the PNC and PPP, what people are looking for is genuine change or people who may be able to make genuine change happen.
I am willing to excuse Mr. Ramkarran for whatever happened in the PPP government before Cheddi Jagan passed away in 1997, or what happened during Janet Jagan’s two years at the helm, but what transpired after she stepped down right up until now, is totally unacceptable or inexcusable. He may not be aware of it, but all his recent talk about ending corruption, restoring transparency and building racial unity not only serve as an indictment of the Jagdeo Administration for failing in these very areas, but also an indictment of the House Speaker, because as a ranking PPP executive whose position Parliament is to determine what matters get to be discussed there, he could have helped address these very issues whenever parliamentary opposition members attempted to start discussions on some of them.
In my opinion, he was more interested in protecting the image of the PPP rather than protecting the interests of the people, because on several issues, such as the CLICO collapse, the spy equipment saga, and Roger Khan and the Phantom Squad scandal, Guyanese were robbed of an opportunity for full accountability by those responsible for what actually happened in each of those and myriad other cases.
Because of a compliant legislative branch, the executive branch was literally allowed to get away with a lot of stuff that, in other law-abiding nations, would have resulted in impartial investigations leading to criminal arrests, indictments, convictions, fines, sentences and seizure of properties and bank accounts.
On the issue of a third term for Jagdeo, I would have been in the forefront pushing for his third term via a constitutional amendment if the President had governed in a totally different manner, including support for the rule of law, respect for the separation of powers and people’s rights, while delivering in a major way for Guyana’s socioeconomic rejuvenation.
But the President has not only failed miserably to deliver on what he was supposed to; he has actually made decisions that could and should be revisited by the next government, resulting in but not limited to investigative reviews and even impartial rescissions. He may be an economics graduate but he has mastered the art of deception.
I am also afraid that given Mr. Ramkarran’s failure to play a more meaningful role as House Speaker in ensuring Parliament helped to keep the executive branch in check, that if he goes on to become President he will never review his predecessor’s decisions or rescind orders and awards or sweetheart deals on state resources that may have robbed the people of greater benefits if these were done transparently rather than secretly. Again, it will come down to a President Ramkarran wanting to protect the image of the PPP if a lot of stuff that happened under the Jagdeo presidency becomes unearthed.
Also, unless I misunderstood him, on Mr. Ramkarran’s point about ‘the restoration of Cabinet’s decision-making authority, in order to dispel unease about the powers of the president’, what kind of decision-making authority does Cabinet need given that these members are handpicked by the President and serve at the pleasure of the President? A review of all matters before the House in which the President wanted a desired result will show that his Cabinet members were on his side, so if there should be any restoration of decision-making authority, it should be in Parliament, where members are forced to vote along party lines or face recall by the party.
As it is right now, Parliament, which is different from Cabinet, serves as a rubber stamp for the President and or the ruling party and the parliamentary majority usually votes with the rest of the Cabinet.
Finally, Mr. Ramkarran reportedly said he is in favour of repealing Article 182, which basically protects the President from lawsuits and criminal indictments while in office or after he demits office for acts committed while in office. Every Guyanese should back him on this. However, I would like Mr. Ramkarran to come clean with us and say what was his position on this particular matter when his party engaged in the 1999 constitutional amendments? Did he favour keeping this clause in place? If so, his sudden epiphany about its irrelevance is not good enough to qualify him as a believable presidential candidate on this issue.
By the way, that presidential protection clause was originally intended for Forbes Burnham but it was not limited elections rigging, as Mr. Ramkarran erroneously noted, because if it were limited to protecting Burnham for elections rigging, then why is it serving such a useful purpose right now when there is no election rigging? This clause is all about protecting dictator-like presidents so they can do whatever they want, whenever they want and to whomever they want and get away with doing them all, and it literally spoke volumes about the political kinship between the PPP and PNC that both would retain this clause when they had an opportunity to delete it to reflect a new era of governance.
Unfortunately, the new era of governance promised by the PPP in 1992 is still to dawn on Guyana, because, except for rigged elections, what we have today is actually an extension of pre-1992. This government is also more directly and literally mired in corruption to the benefit of a chosen few while attempting to mask this by highlighting infrastructural developments for the people. To boot, the executive branch actually managed to get away with this because the legislative branch, as well as the judicial branch, failed to do their jobs. In short, whereas the first word in the name People’s Progressive Party is ‘People’ and the last word is ‘Party’, Mr. Ramkarran, as Speaker in the legislative branch, reversed the places of the words to put ‘Party’ ahead of ‘People’.

Emile Mervin

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