The re-emergence of Samuel Hinds as the PPP/C Prime Ministerial Candidate in “97

Oct 04, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Following my first letter re: The doctored version of Janet Jagan’s Candidacy in ’97, I would like to relate, again for the historical records, how Sam Hinds (re-emerged) as the Prime Ministerial Candidate for the 1997 General Elections.
In my previous letter I related how Janet Jagan manipulated/subverted the entire selection process within the PPP.
At the point of appointing/announcing herself, to the Exco, as the PPP’s Presidential Candidate for the General Elections, she also took away the choice of Prime Ministerial Candidate, by announcing that she had had discussions with Sam Hinds and he had agreed to run with her. This left the PPP cabal in disarray, out of which, Bharrat Jagdeo emerged as the third candidate on the PPP’s slate. The members of the Exco held on to each other, not reading the Czarina’s game plan, for her son Joey Jagan to be schooled into the job by mom. Not even Joey was reading the tea leaves.
In the interim, Ramkarran, sensing that he was going to win the PPP nomination from within the Exco, had held secret discussions with Sam Hinds and he had agreed to run as Ralph’ running mate.
Prior to all this happening Janet Jagan had pulled Luncheon into her corner and whispered into his ear that she would have him as her running mate. This in effect bought his fight/silence during the debate for a PPP candidate, at any level.
Now that these issues are being brought before the court of public opinion, I wish to observe, that there was a deadly game of betrayal by every player involved in these machinations, Janet, Sam, Roger and Ralph. This episode also typifies the role of the Civic within the decision making process of the PPP. The consenting bride bringing nothing to the marriage by 1997!
During this period, I, as Administrative and Executive Director of Guyanese Organisation for Liberty and Democracy (GOLD) had managed to prize Eddie Da Silva, PPP/C MP, away from the PPP and one day, as the two of us were leaving Forgartys, Janet spotted us together. Her facial expression was as though she had suffered a stroke. I advised Eddie not to go to Freedom House where he was residing at the time. He went and Janet corralled him and for the first time was trying, after opposing all his previous appointments by Cheddi, to invite him to accompany her to a democracy conference in Barbados. He went and on the first afternoon, over dinner by the pool side, she let the cat out the bag!
She related the following to Eddie:-
“You see what they (American/British Imperialists) did to the father, don’t you think the son (Joey) deserve it (the Presidency); that you (Eddie) and David Debadin are the only two friends he has got in the PPP, take care of him, guide him and I will make him president”.
That was how the cookie was supposed to crumble, but her health did not allow her to realise her dreams. Among her most lasting regrets, I believe, was that she made the worst mistake of her long political life by naming her son, and secretly chosen successor, Joey, as a PPP/C back-bencher in parliament, where he self-destructed and she could do nothing about it, as he had no friends in the hierarchy of the PPP, to help her control/steer him. His egotism, as the son of two Presidents, would no allow him to read what his mother was attempting to do for him, pave the way for his succession, to the Presidency.
Janet  Jagan had intended to decapitate the entire leadership of the PPP, the arm chair Corporals’ Guard, that Cheddi had so carefully cultivated in his lean years in opposition and the bunch, in their attempt at self-preservation, could not read the Czarina’s game plan and so peacefully and willingly nominated a non-contender for power in the PPP, Bharrat Jagdeo. She intended to perpetuate the Jagan dynasty.
From all accounts this young man, Jagdeo, had told all his fellow PPP students that he intended to become President on coming to Guyana. He was not the best PPP student in Moscow, having failed some of his maths examinations over there.
Professor Danilof had failed him in several mathematics courses. He was regarded as lazy and was the {only} PPP student who regularly visited the Guyana Embassy in Moscow.
In Guyana he played his pursuit very well; well disguised that he kept his intentions hidden and under wraps until, as fortune would have it, Janet Jagan played into his hands and we now see the manifestation of the not properly qualified technician, who had the wonderful chance, to take the whole country to a new and higher level, with the entire country willing to give him a chance, but who was found woefully unprepared for the big man’s (or woman’s) shoe he was about to be gifted.
Show me one candidate who graduated from the Socialist system who has transformed a village, much less a country?
Now Guyana is a dispirited, demoralised, dysfunctional, narco controlled/infested, handicapped nation. We had been badly treated by the illegal (the issue of the conduct of General Elections in ’68, ’73, ’80 and the Referendum of ’78) Burnham regime and the popular replacement, the PPP, and their equal incompetence, just like the Burnham years, when given the reign of power, along with the high expectancy of the entire nation, on what should have been our final political and economic emancipation, after the “Dawn of a New Era in 1992”.
The PPP/C inherited all that goodwill generated through the foresight of Desmond Hoyte’s Economic Recovery Programme (ERP, scandalised as Empty Rice Pot by the PPP) that due to the promised funding, in the pipelines, but held up for the conduct of certified free and fair elections in 1992) that the Cheddi Jagan years, in the Presidency, appear as mild by comparison to the dismal performance of the PPP/C after his demise.
The conduct of the 1985 General Elections is the “black eye” on President Hoyte’s tremendous achievement that singles him out as the best President Guyana has ever had, bar none. These elections proved to be the worst rigged elections in the history of the country, yes, worst than 1973. The Guyanese people were expecting a new dispensation and change from the dark days of the Burnham experience. Hoyte and the PNC were removed from power in 1992, by the Guyanese electorate, because of this tremendous perception, of Guyanese, of (primarily) rigged elections, during their stewardship.
And herein lies the major problem of Guyana, in the practice of democratic elections, given (what Burnham had to contend with), the PPP’s inbuilt permanent majority, only now being dispensed with due to the ravages of migration and the emergence of new and (innocent) political forces, on the horizon/scene.
Anyhow, Jagdeo is not done with his wanton mishandling of Guyana. There is much to keep under cover from his time at the helm. This makes the Burnham years of economic stewardship pale into insignificance. There is more than meets the eye in the unexpected, sponsored emergence of Donald Ramotar as the PPP’s candidate for the 2011 General Elections. Jagdeo will not walk away meekly into the sunset and oblivion. And he is not expected to secure any high level international jobs now or in the future.
So is the Hope Canal and the Norwegian Funds going to provide the springboard for the biggest looting in the history of the Treasury of Guyana in the coming months?
And the PNCR is in total disarray, Murray and Granger et al. It would be surprising if they face the poll as a viable entity at all in 2011. Where are the large campaign funds going to coming from?
The PNCR as presently constituted will never win over Indo-Guyanese voters, unless they apologise for all the many manifest wrongs they perpetuated on a generation of the Guyanese people. Similarly the PPP/C are on track to lose power in the next Elections for the same reasons like the PNC, economic stewardship of the economy and style of governance and their apology will be expected also. And they (both PNC and PPP) will continue to lose the base of their core support to parties like the AFC with Raphael Trotman, the only former PNC leader to ask for an apology from the PNC, towards the nation.
The issues/things was/is so bad in the PNC that they could not even get a Pandit/Molvie to bless/pray at one of their campaign functions during the “97 campaign. Just five years after losing absolute power. No piggy backing into contention; they are trying all sorts of underhand tactics and shenanigans’ to maintain their former position as the official opposition. But their schemes will not prevail. Congratulations to the AFC for staying the course and not getting into the quagmire of the PNC’s doldrums/tailspins.
The likes of Murray and Granger are trying to step into the void but little do they understand that a dwindling minority base does not constitute a working majority. And they will not attract one rank and file Indo Guyanese vote to help their cause. That is the sad reality, thanks to their years of rigged elections practices. The baby does come home to roost, doesn’t it?
The issue of the PNC Leader and candidate, being one or two persons, can be proposed to their supporters. Or they will be presenting what in effect is a small mountain with a bomb inside it.
Thanks to both Ramotar and Corbin for imposing themselves on the nation. The dye is cast.
Here comes the train and the innocence of Guyanese politics…The AFC. And both major parties beware the rise of this dynamic, Liberal Democratic, young, attractive, mass based Political Party, without skeletons in their cupboards, positioned to answer the long awaited prayers of the Guyanese people, for final salvation and resurrection. A new day is about to dawn.
Over to you AFC, Ramjattan, Trotman and Holder and all the inspired activists on the ground, both at home and in the Diaspora, the new kids on the block! The prize is State Power. The goal is redemption of the Guyanese nation. I know that you are prepared and capable and time and tide are on your side. I can sense the ground swell, for the AFC, as I did in the ’90-’92 period, in your overwhelming favour.
Discipline! Vigilance! Patience!
Lionel Peters

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