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The waltz
At the funeral of the father of Adam Harris, Mr. Malcolm Parris of the PNC, took me aside and urged me not to criticise Mr. Ralph Ramkarran on this page. His position was that he is the best one in the PPP and should be allowed to eventually take over.
I was polite to Mr. Parris. I said I could not agree. Attorney Gino Persaud has echoed the same sentiments to me. As a friend, I have consistently told Gino, I believe Mr. Ramkarran is not the better choice.
Yes, there are times you have to beat your own drum. No one has publicly derided the presidential ineligibilities of Mr. Ramkarran, except this columnist. To date, Mr. Ramkarran has not issued a statement to the thousands of his supporters about the ignominious climax that he shaped for himself. My evaluation has been consistent. He never had leadership qualities but was shielded from critical scrutiny because he never wielded power on behalf of the PPP and its government.
When election time came around, he became the favourite of many because those many seldom knew about his political faults.
Next is Mr. Navin Chandarpal. I was cynical about his exchange with President Jagdeo. Again, no one wanted to comment out of support for Chandarpal as against Jagdeo. But it was a charade and Chandarpal was the key player. In my assessment of Chandarpal on this page, I argued that he was blaming Jagdeo to save GAWU from sugar workers’ wrath and the PPP from losing electoral support on the sugar estates.
Chandarpal’s obsession was not saving his country from Mr. Jagdeo’s excesses but preserving the anachronistic edifice of the PPP, the only world he knows and understands.
Shakespearian comedy, Faustian ironies and fascist intrigues played out in a small room at Freedom House last Monday. All the historical analyses of how incestuous and primitive and dangerously narrow-minded the PPP is, were proven right on that fateful day. Mr. Chandarpal crept back into his congenital cocoon. Mr. Ramkarran remained his natural self – a man without leadership qualities. They both agreed that the PPP as a historic party is a great institution whose leadership must not be seen to be anything but loving comrades to each other.
The winner in the Macbethian concoction that was brewed last Monday inside Freedom House was Moses Nagamootoo. He redeemed himself by refusing to bury his soul inside the bowels of the Mephistophelian sarcophagus. He didn’t dance the waltz with Medusa in Hotel California on Robb Street.
By staying away from Monday’s bonfires of the inanities, Moses Nagamootoo may be the deciding factor in who wins the next election.
Where does Guyana go from here? Before we arrive at our answer, a quick note on the future of Ramkarran and Chandarpal. They will support their party, live with its ossified anatomy and grow old and fade away as new Indians from the countryside take over in the coming years.
If the PPP loses or wins, both Ramkarran and Chandarpal will be in advanced age. Their time would be passing. It is doubtful they will attempt to bring modern democratic thinking to the PPP. They are both permanent prisoners of the cemetery Cheddi and Janet Jagan long created for his sycophantic protégés from rural Guyana.
My own thought lies in the direction of a PPP defeat at the general elections. The most optimism the PPP can hold on to is a minority presidential victory with the Parliament going to the opposition majority. If the PPP wins, there will not be any departure into the garden of modern politics. Human behaviour does not follow scientific laws.
In the social sphere life is unpredictable. But logic dictates human existence. In the evolution of political logic in the PPP and judging the content of the PPP’s 19-year-old rule since 1992, there is no reason to believe that the philosophical values that guide human beings on the roles of justice and freedom will be understood and implemented if the PPP wins this year.
How can any organization that plotted its way to power, beginning with the way it chose its presidential candidate last Monday; that frowns upon open competition for headship; that sees no virtue in going to the wider society and asking for dialogue when it is choosing that head, take this country into the future?
This column is the publication of my opinion, and it is my sincere belief that no party anywhere in the world that is grounded in those kinds of macabre conceptualisations can ever bring peace, progress, humanity, modern culture and freedom to any country.
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