There is a sea change taking place in Guyana’s politics

Nov 12, 2011 Letters

---

 

 

Dear Editor,
Am I the only one who has noticed that the PPP has made the AFC, and not APNU, the target of its attacks in this election season? Is it because the AFC has suddenly posed a greater threat?
Earlier this year the President set off a firestorm of controversy when he stoked the flames of ethnic fears and insecurity among Indian Guyanese, by telling a gathering at Babu John that PNC/APNU presidential candidate, Mr. David Granger, had blood on his hands for his still unproven role in the killings of some PPP comrades during the 1973 elections.
And while his ‘blood-on-his-hands’ accusation against Mr. Granger may have been par for the political discourse in whipping up ethnic fear and insecurity, by pitting the PPP against the PNC, no one knew that the worst attacks from the President and his preferred choice for President, Mr. Donald Ramotar, would later be directed at the fledgling AFC.
The President and his protégé still make the occasional reference to the PNC/APNU, but in the last two weeks, it is the six-year-old AFC with only five parliamentary seats that has gotten the bulk of the sledgehammering from the sixty-something-year-old PPP with 36 parliamentary seats.
It was almost like Goliath going out to challenge the enemy, but instead of confronting David with a sling and five stones, he was confronted by Moses with a rod. (Chronologically, for those who know, Moses did come before David!)
Indeed, the defection of Mr. Moses Nagamootoo from the PPP, after 50 years, to the fledgling AFC, has ignited the fury of the President, who is tone deaf to the silent cries of despair from other PPP leaders, even as he has turned up the volume of his attacks against the AFC.
Not all senior PPPites are backing the President and his protégé, and Mr. Nagamootoo’s defection has turned a crack in the PPP and its support base into a growing chasm, causing the attacks from the President and his protégé to be seen as signs of desperation to try and keep the PPP support base glued together.
For the first time, therefore, the PPP no longer can no longer use the PNC to play the fear and insecurity race card to its support base. For the first time, Indian Guyanese are looking at the PPP, with its Indian President and his Indian protégé, on the one hand, and the AFC, with two former Indian PPP executives in dominant roles, on the other hand.
When it comes to the PPP and AFC, race is no longer an issue! It has come down to the issue of credibility and trust, and gauging from public sentiment, including traditional PPP constituents, the President and his protégé lack credibility and cannot be trusted.
There is a sea change taking place in Guyana’s politics and, for the first time, the PPP is facing the dismal prospect of either losing the entire government or at least control of both the executive and legislative branches of government.
And this is not a loss the PPP can afford, given what is potentially at stake if its current President becomes a regular citizen, like Janet Jagan once became. A PPP loss could mean the President has to answer questions about his government’s alleged role with drug smugglers and the unsolved murders of hundreds of Guyanese. Also at stake is the potential for a revisit of almost all state contracts and deals worth billions of dollars, as such revisits could result in seizure of bank accounts and repossession of state properties.
In all seriousness, and for the sake of its President, the PPP has more to lose in this election than just the ability to govern, and I expect it to pull out all stops to try and win. If it could have retained the PNC as a consultant on rigging, it would. It is that desperate, folks.
Matter of fact, when Mr. Ramotar said at Whim last Tuesday that “Trotman has taken charge of AFC,” (KN, November 10), and that should the AFC gain parliamentary seats, Mr. Trotman will be the one deciding who gets parliamentary seats, Mr. Ramotar subtly played the race card for Indians gathered to hear him speak.
In the minds of Indians, the picture is one of a Black man running the AFC, even though an Indian is the AFC’s presidential candidate, and even though another prominent Indian is likely to get a key appointment in an AFC government.
Earlier I said the issue was no longer about race between the PPP and PNC, but on reading Mr. Ramotar’s race-tinged reference to Mr. Trotman running the AFC, it is possible that the PPP’s addiction to race politics forces its candidate to create racial targets where none exist.
And to think that despite my criticisms of Mr. Ramotar being based on his failure at GuySuCo and at the helm of the PPP, I was still open to him being President if he were elected. Now I have fortified doubts that he will be any better than his mentor. In fact, I doubt whether a President Ramotar will ever be allowed to become his own man, let alone reverse anything done by President Jagdeo that was wrong.
A President Ramotar may well be in for a rude awakening if he thinks he will govern on his own terms, because if he has been reading the tea leaves, he will discern that the President has lassoed the PPP, PPP MPs and the upper echelons of government with people who are loyal to him. He does not necessarily have to worry about running for office again, because with an abundance of ‘resources’ obtained and stashed during his presidency, he can always rely on a PPP-dominated Parliament to amend the constitutional term limits to allow him to run again later on.
Now, since no one knows if a President Ramotar would brutally upstage Mr. Jagdeo after November 28 and kill off his chances of a comeback, Guyana’s best option at this time to ensure President Jagdeo never runs or rises again is to hand the PPP a clear and decisive defeat on November 28. Short of that, whichever party forms the next government must immediately get international help to launch an investigation into the members of the current administration and their associates to determine how they all came by their newfound wealth.
And if the investigations reveal any skullduggery, steps must be taken to seize and repossess everything, including overseas bank accounts and properties, fraudulently taken from the people of Guyana. Investigations must not merely embarrass the crooks, but they must set a precedent that would make it extremely difficult for future governments to ever do what this government has done to the people of Guyana.
Emile Mervin

---

---