Conspiracy or boldness?

Apr 06, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

From the time Minister Priya Manickhand expressed the view publicly that Henry Greene should demit office, opinions started to fly around like bees moving toward their nectar. They all centered on Manickchand’s “bravery.” There was the feeling that Manickchand is a maverick. This columnist had to answer questions about what I thought of what Manickchand said. Here is my response.
The Guyanese people have had more than sixty years in which to analyse the PPP. This party has been in power for the twenty years plus seven years earlier, plus 28 years in opposition. In that long period, the PPP has fanatically adhered to the culture of democratic centralism and Stalinist methodologies. The PPP tolerates no dissent the kind you find in liberal constitutionalism that Fareed Zakaria wrote about.
It was wishful thinking on the part of anyone to think that there would have been a members’ meeting to elect the PPP presidential candidate for the last national elections. The PPP is a tightly knit group-think outfit that would not permit free speech that is dissenting or even mildly critical.
It would not take lightly to public divergence from what is the laid down party line on matters of all kinds. The PPP has never been open to internal free speech. It may not practice capitalism, but it is surely Stalinist in its organizational structure.
When he became Minister, in his first budget presentation (I researched it before I wrote this piece) Ashni Singh told the press that the budget could have been better, all budgets could be better, but there are constraints to what a government can do. The next day there was a letter in the press from Singh saying that he was misinterpreted and that his budget was the best offered in the country so far. It was obvious to the analyst that he was told he spoke wrongly.
Leslie Ramsammy, on a television programme in 1999, said that there should be a Cabinet reshuffle and maybe a new Minister was needed in the health portfolio. Ramsammy was admonished severely for that observation.
We now come to Priya Manickchand. Henry Greene is the Commissioner of Police who has served the PPP Government faithfully for over seven years. It is foolish to think that his relationship with the Government in those seven years was marked by professional impeccability. Far from it. My point is that Greene is a figure that had overlapping relations with powerful members of the PPP Government.
In the midst of the Greene crisis, Manickchand exclaimed that Greene should not wait to be told to resign, but should willingly go. Did Manickchand become a maverick and without consulting her superiors in the establishment just mouthed off? My answer is no. I offer two scenarios as to why Manickchand appeared to be “bold.” Readers could chose which one they find more efficacious.
First, I think Manickchand knew that the overwhelming sentiment among the Leviathans was that Greene had to go and will be told to go. She figured if she mouthed off, there could be no repercussions because that was the thinking in her party.
The alternative explanation was that the Leviathans had their little confabulation probably over drinks or over a sumptuous dinner and the Greene imbroglio came up for a decision. I will now quote what I think was said; “Priya, you want to set the tone? Arrange to be quoted as saying that you think Greene should go, then, one of us will chip in next and let’s see how it plays out.”
Other commentators are entitled to their opinion, but my contestation is that Priya Manickchand or any other PPP Minister, or any other high level PPP leader, would never ever contemplate making a public statement on a sensitive national issue like the fate of the Police Commissioner without clearing it with party apparatchiks.
This is not the way the PPP operates, and the PPP will never sanction such liberal conduct from within its ranks.
As stated before in one of my columns, I think the Americans want Greene, and they are putting pressure on Ramotar. It would appear that this is the manoeuvre the Americans were waiting to make in the post-Jagdeo configuration. Greene opened himself to vulnerability because of the sex scandal.
Even if there could have been pressure to keep him because of loyalty, Greene self- destructed. Greene handed Ramotar his head on a platter. Give Greene to the Americans, give him too to the Guyanese people and either way, Ramotar wins big time.
Sorry Henry? There is a big hole in the bucket; go and mend it.

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Conspiracy or boldness?

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