Will the PPP’s Central Committee vote be secret ballot or show-of-hands?

Jan 03, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I am confounded to read Ralph Ramkarran’s letter (31-12- 10 Kaieteur News), saying there was never any doubt about the method of voting that will be used to elect PPP’s presidential candidate. Ramkarran now says very definitively that whenever there is more than one nominee the method will have to be by secret ballot.
Over the last weeks there has been a lot of buzz that this vote will be rigged to favour President Jagdeo’s all but unannounced nominee. Thanks to Speaker Ralph Ramkarran for clearing up this matter.
What created this buzz in the first place? Mr. Editor, did your paper – and indeed all papers in the nation – carry a news item citing General Secretary Ramotar as saying that the method of record (i.e. show-of-hands vote) used for all previous presidential nominees (only  three – Cheddi, Janet, Jagdeo) served the party well in the past – and will be used again? So this is the source of all the confusion and the buzz. What did Ramotar really mean still needs to be clarified?
Mr. Editor, I live in the United States – this is the country where I get my education about electoral politics. All newspapers of repute in this country regularly carry editorials endorsing candidates for elective office. Such editorials help to both educate and mold public opinions – and in the current Guyana’s election, potentially help to elect the next president.
Please consider doing an editorial on this pivotal election that will determine who the next president will be. In previous letters I have repeatedly made the argument that whoever becomes the nominee of the PPP will be the next president. Let us be sure that the most qualified candidate by experience, intellect and temperament gets elected in this all too flawed system, the so-called central committee process.
The state of political developments in Guyana leaves much to be desired. In all advanced, matured democracies a party’s presidential nominee is elected by the whole Congress – not a handful of 36-people, as is the case in Guyana. The United States’ party system is unique: literally the whole population is involved in what is called the primary system. The independent press in Guyana should really do more to condemn the backward political practices of Guyana’s ethnic parties, PPP and PNCR.
Allow me one anecdote and brief comments on the candidates Ramkarran, Ramotar, Nagamootoo.
Last August I ran into a PPP delegate at a Labba restaurant at Parika. He invited me to his table where he was arguing with his guests over his preferred candidate, Ramotar. I asked him to state the reasons for his choice. He said: “Ramotar is the only man in the PPP who can take care of “things” – and offered no other explanation. I then raised the candidacy of Nagamootoo. Remarkably this unnamed PPP delegate said “at the drop of a hat, I would vote for Nagamootoo”. He was very much aware of Nagamootoo’s legendary reputation as someone who scaled fences to escape PNC’s goon squad during the dark days of the dictatorship. “No one has worked harder for the PPP”.
But, he said, Nagamootoo has no chance of overcoming the personality problems he has with Jagdeo and the upper echelons of the party.
Ramkarran does not possess the mark of leadership in my estimation. He is a fine man otherwise. He chose to sit on the fence while GuySuCo threatened by written letter to de-recognize the GAWU. Ramkarran is evidently too scared to call for a primary system (vote by all party members). He does not see the need to broaden and strengthen democracy. Which party in any democratic society is worth its honour that chooses to disempower its membership, deny them the right to choose its leader? Nagamootoo on the other hand is strong and decisive.
He calls for empowerment of the party membership, denounces the notion of a handful of 36-people electing the next leader, and was quick to take the side of the workers against an entrenched Management Board, chaired by Dr. Nanda Gopaul, who doubles as the chief-of-staff of President Jagdeo. Nagamootoo is not intimidated by power.
My favourite anecdote, following the 1997 or 2001 (I forgot which) election that saw mayhem and disruption on the streets of Georgetown, the matter reached a New York radio station.
There was Kit Nascimento for 45-minutes with a commanding radio voice making the arguments that the election was fraudulent. I called the host (a man from the Caribbean who has since passed away) and demanded that he invites a representative from the ruling party to present their side.
The following day at the appointed hour, there was Moses Nagamootoo live on the phone from Guyana giving a point-by-point rebuttal of all the false arguments made by Nascimento. It was a performance – a debate though not face-to-face – to behold. Nagamootoo ably defended the positions and policies of the PPP as no other member has done – or capable of doing. He is a brilliant author – his booklet on the press-freedom trials before Justice Vieira in the 1970s – is a classic.
He has also published a much acclaimed novel on Tamils in Guyana. A mostly self-educated man, who later graduated from law school, he possesses outstanding leadership qualities, worked for years on policy issues, served as legislator and Minister in the earlier PPP Government until personality issues developed between himself and President Jagdeo – and he has been in the dog-house ever since.
In small, emerging democracies like Guyana, the leader holds the power of life and death over his subjects including the members of his party, and made worse when the leader possesses a temperament and a mind made for exacting vendettas.
Moses Nagamootoo’s political career like Dong Xiaoping’s can only be redeemed when Mao dies or if the party Congress is given the vote.
Moses Nagamootoo is extremely popular among rank and file members of the party in all regions of the country – and will win the presidential nod hands down if only the PPP was a regular and normal party guided by democratic practices. With all the levers of power in Jagdeo’s hands, Nagamootoo’s fate is sealed
Mike Persaud

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