President Jagdeo does not understand the fundamental values of life

Apr 17, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There are endless permutations being discussed in many sections of the Guyanese society about the post-election manoeuvres of Bharrat Jagdeo to either retain power or be the figure behind the throne. If I were to ask as an analyst to give my opinion as to if Mr. Jagdeo is contemplating such conspiracies I would say yes. Mr. Jagdeo is a power-wielder whose personality and character are not complicated therefore evaluation of his rule should not be difficult.
First, I do not think Mr. Jagdeo possesses leadership qualities. In graduate school, we were taught that there were nine of them (I think this came out of a study of comparative leadership done at Ohio University in the late seventies). We cannot enumerate them here and even if this is done it would entail discussing each of them.
I see Mr. Jagdeo possessing not even one of them. Leadership falls into two categories –transactional and transformational. Only Mr. Jagdeo’s underlings who are in his generous pay would admit that he is a transformational leader.
I first met Mr. Jagdeo as President in 1999 after advice from then Minister of Finance, Mr. Sasenarine Kowlessar, that in order to change the specification in my duty-free car letter I had to see the President himself. If that was a horrible thought, more frightening was the acceptance of Mr. Jagdeo to see me to discuss that unadulterated inconsequentiality. I saw the lack of quality in Mr. Jagdeo after he agreed to the change. Any leader, be it in the security forces, corporate world, or in government must instill self-respect into their authority. Their deportment must be shaped to induce people to respect their office and the person behind the desk.
This is the one area of leadership where Mr. Jagdeo has been a total failure. Mr. Jagdeo simply doesn’t understand some of the higher principles of life. After agreeing to the request, Mr. Jagdeo sent me to Mr. Nirmal Rekha to collect my signed document. Mr. Jagdeo couldn’t bring himself to deny the request so he said yes and kept hiding from me. The word was passed on to Rekha not to give me approval.
Mr. Jagdeo thought I was so foolish to believe that the bad guy was Rekha. I knew who the bad guy was. I lost all respect for Mr. Jagdeo as a person from that day and never met him again. I don’t want to ever meet with him again.
Mr. Jagdeo hasn’t changed since then. If a leader lacks forthrightness, plays games with his citizens, allows himself to be seen as an evader and someone who brings disrespect to his office, he will not succeed in acquiring enduring constituencies.
I believe if the PPP wins the next election (I don’t think they will) and Mr. Jagdeo does not retain power through some form of subterfuge, he will quickly be dismissed by newer PPP leaders and his tenure would be ridiculed by the very persons who now heap praise on him.
In fact, Mr. Jagdeo not only has failed but he will go down as one of the most disrespected leaders the Caribbean has ever produced. No leader of a country will ever command love and reverence from another human being on Planet Earth if he cusses down citizens while performing his duties as Head of State and is quite happy to say that “if they cuss me down, I will cuss them back.”
Such a leader does not understand the essential pillars of life. If the PPP wins the election and Mr. Jagdeo becomes the man behind the throne, my honest feeling is that he will not change and he will not seek to overcome his limitations because he lacks the leadership capacity to do so.
We will get more games from him. There will be the usual cuss down style. There will be systematic failures in policy-making as what presently characterize his twelve-year-old hegemonic stable.
The analyst must be able to explain why after twelve years in power Mr. Jagdeo managed to live out his presidential life without ever facing a debate. Mr. Jagdeo came close to one such encounter in his whole political life and he was scared as hell. The fear on his face told the story of a failed leader.
It was when Christopher Ram turned up at the CLICO meeting at the National Cultural Centre. There and then Mr. Jagdeo knew he couldn’t debate. He would have lost. He ordered that Mr. Ram must not be allowed to speak. Not even one challenge in twelve years has Mr. Jagdeo accepted. That should be in the Guinness Book of Records

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News