President Ramotar is doing his work; the opposition is incompetent

Feb 15, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

When Khemraj Ramattan and Gerhard Ramsaroop confronted President Ramotar on my dismissal from UG at the first meeting of the tripartite entity, Mr. Ramotar told them his government had nothing to do with it. I asked Gerhard what the response by the APNU representatives was who heard that.
He said that David Granger, Rupert Roopnaraine and Deborah Backer said not a word. Not even. “Come on Mr. President, please!”
On the PPP side were Ramotar, Gail Teixeira and Clement Rohee. Rohee and Ramotar spent eight years individually working in communist Czechoslovakia. They are very senior political activists in Guyana. Just as seasoned as them is Gail Teixeira. These people may not be practitioners of democracy but they are political hunters. They know their prey.
When Granger, Roopnaraine and Backer sat silent as the AFC fired away on my dismissal, Ramotar, Rohee and Teixeira took notes.
The opposition was insulted when it was told that five PPP UG Councilors fired me (four of whom are PPP Parliamentarians) but the Government had nothing to do with it. But the opposition met these same three PPP negotiators four times since the UG thing came up. Now that Mr. Ramotar has decided to speak his mind, there is a crying going on in opposition camps.
When President Ramotar stated that the opposition participated in the rigging of the 2011 election by creating violence and preaching outright race, he was merely doing his political work. He was not concerned with what Mr. Granger or APNU or AFC would say.
He spoke what he thought was politically in the interest of the PPP, the party he leads. When President Ramotar told the same opposition who is now crying about the rigged election charge that the Government had nothing to do with my firing from UG in the middle of the academic year, they accepted it, and met four times after in the tripartite talks. Eric Philips told me when he heard I was fired; “I hope the opposition don’t go into any tripartite talks.”
Who is doing what? President Ramotar is doing his political assignments. You can’t blame him for that. He has political interests to serve. Those interests are the pillars on which the future of his party and his government rest. You may not agree with what he said in his interview about the opposition rigging the 2011 election through violence. But he is doing his work. It is the opposition in this country that is incomprehensively incompetent. This country needs a new party to be formed immediately.
I suggest that it be led by Nigel Hughes and include Lincoln Lewis, Mark Benschop and Gerhard Ramsaroop, among others. I am prepared to take a leading role in this new formation. I have not held card membership in any party, including the WPA that I was part of when it was born. But I am ready now. Guyana’s opposition has been found wanting.
Why did President Ramotar utter the statements attributed to him in that interview? A partial answer to this question lies in the final paragraph of the Sunday column by this paper’s editor, Adam Harris. I called Adam and I said; “Are you changing?” He said, “No.” In his final paragraph Adam said that there are certain people who are convinced they have a monopoly on the race vote and want fresh elections
The only human beings in Guyana who don’t know this are in the combined opposition. An analysis of the Ramotar interview reveals graphic election materials. There is the charge of rigged election, use of violence against PPP supporters and opposition leaders (read that to mean, African Guyanese) using racial incitement.
Are those the themes that can buy back Region Six from Moses Nagamootoo?
I said on the interview programme, “Eye on the Issues,” and I wrote in one of my columns last week that the tripartite talks are going to miserably fail and the combined opposition will have an ignominious blot on its face. The stage is being set for fresh elections.
Asked by Christopher Ram if GECOM could be ready for a snap poll, its Chairman said yes.
Money is no problem for the PPP. That party wants a parliamentary majority and it is going to call another election soon.
The PPP is convinced that it lost the majority in Region Six. If the party conjures up pictures of PNC leaders preaching race, PPP voters being chased away by Georgetown hooligans and that once more the PNC rigged the election, and paint Moses Nagamootoo as a participant in this “tragedy” then the leaders of that party feel a new election will give them a majority.

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President Ramotar is doing his work; the opposition is incompetent

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