A return to the PPP will destroy Ralph Ramkarran’s legacy

Jul 04, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The PPP is scrambling to regain Ralph Ramkarran who left after several PPP insiders berated him for speaking out against corruption. A return to the PPP will damage Ralph Ramkarran’s legacy, credibility, image and his reputation.
At age 65, Ramkarran is in the sunset of his political career. While he was possibly unwilling to serve in the past, the only achievement left for Ramkarran was to become the PPP presidential candidate. The Jagdeoites controlling the PPP at the behest of their master made it unequivocally clear to Ralph Ramkarran that he never will get the presidency despite the fact that Ramkarran presented the best potential for securing those vital crossover votes which the PPP desperately needed for a majority in 2011.
They want Ramkarran back, not out of genuine concern but out of fear of the impact of his departure on their hold on power. They need power to pillage this land. Skullduggery cannot be achieved with minorities. There must be majorities.
They were considering a snap election to maximise power because the lure of oil wealth and majority power means the power to take whatever they want whenever they want. Ramkarran’s departure puts a serious dent on their designs on the wealth of this country.  If Ramkarran falls prey to the begging and pleading of the charlatans trying to woo him back, he will be making the single greatest mistake of his career.
The pretenders are not sorry. They are hell bent on oligarchic domination of this country and its wealth. Ramkarran must be brought back into the fold to enable that domination. This is not about a serious assault on corruption in this country by the PPP controllers to appease the concerns of one of its stalwarts. It is why after Ramkarran resigned there is no announcement of any independent forensic audit of NICIL as demanded by Parliament.
For Ralph Ramkarran to return to this clique is to enable the expansion of corruption in his beloved homeland. It is to secure the political road to thievery and venality. It is to validate the oligarchy that will grow into a monstrosity if oil is found. It is to facilitate the greater divide in a society already greatly divided.
Ramkarran cannot harbour any delusions on these issues for they are central to the very soul of this nation and he is a man in the dawn of his life having a conversation with his soul. His leaving is critical for its potential to force the rank and file PPP membership and supporters to start standing up for democracy within the PPP. Internal democracy is the only way the PPP could regain a majority as internal democracy will bring better leadership to battle those fraudulent types who have hijacked the PPP.
If this current Jagdeoite cabal continues to dominate the PPP and in doing so to handpick incompetents and weak leaders to the highest offices of the land just so they could maintain power to maintain their fingers in the cookie jar, the PPP will lose even more votes.
Ramkarran staying with the PPP cannot stem this decline and his leaving will not cause the PPP to lose power or to come second in an election although it will cause the PPP to definitely lose some percentage points in the overall vote.
Ramkarran’s departure is more pivotal to the future of the PPP for it will create a firestorm of debate over the future of the PPP under the Jagdeoites and will spur a major debate on internal democracy within the PPP.
Those who suspended the last PPP congress and will effectively hold onto power through the Central Committee for six years while the general membership is denied a voice.
Ramkarran’s return to the PPP will result in his persecution. This is a vindictive bunch after all. It does not matter how many demands he makes, he will never get them once he returns. They will harass, torment and sideline him. He knows them having seen them operate for the past decade.
If he leaves again after returning, the riffraffs will paint him as disgruntled, miserable, conniving, fixated on power and a neemakaram.
Ralph Ramkarran cannot be an enabler of the destruction of his party and his nation. He cannot return to a lair of wolves to strengthen them and enlarge their power to dominate a party and a nation while continuing their course of banditry.
Ramkarran cannot preserve their self-preservation while losing his moral core. That is the danger he must prevent for future generations. Getting back into bed with this bunch is tarnishing one moral image and political courage.
Ramkarran cannot play the wavering game Nagamootoo played only to end up treated as a pariah and hounded out of the PPP. They will promise the moon and the stars but their promises will be filled with emptiness.
For even if they promise the presidency in a snap election, they control the Central Committee which could vote to revoke the promise or simply disregard the deal. A new Central Committee cannot be democratically elected until 2014 and without a balanced and fairly elected Central Committee any promises of power or other inducements will be hollow and designed to trap Ramkarran to secure his return for their nefarious aims.
Ralph Ramkarran has stood up for fighting corruption. There is no greater battle for anyone to choose to lay his political career on the line in present-day Guyana. Ramkarran’s respectability rose monumentally across the political divide with his determined stance. To sacrifice and jeopardize that homage for a band of power-drunk bandits is to make politically and morally callous choices for your children and grandchildren.
Someone has to stand up some time by sitting down in front of the bus for all to be able to sit in front of the bus.
M. Maxwell

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