Guyanese simply want changes in the way the PPP governs, not new elections or shared governance

Feb 28, 2013 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
In your news item, “Early elections, shared  governance can break parliamentary impasse,” (Monday, February 25) former House Speaker, Mr. Ralph Ramkarran, posited that the only solution to the present Parliamentary “tension and gridlock” is through early elections and, if the need arises, shared governance should be considered.
First, how can he not know that the reason for the tension and gridlock is because the PPP regime under  Bharrat Jagdeo, despite boasts of progress and development, not only failed in its performance, which led to the party’s loss of its parliamentary majority for the first time, but continues to fail to effect changes even under a new President in a new political dispensation?
And when he further claimed that  Guyana’s  minority government appears to expect opposition support for its policies and in Parliament once it offers cooperation, what exactly is this ‘it’ to which he referred?
If by ‘it’ he means the PPP regime, then he is sadly mistaken, because this regime has demonstrated that it is dictatorial and will not cooperate with any party or person unless it has its own way and the last say.
Take ‘pervasive corruption’, for example,  which Mr. Ramkarran used in one of his columns that resulted in him parting ways with the PPP. When the parliamentary opposition tried earnestly to restore a sense of accountability, responsibility and transparency in the corrupt PPP regime, the regime put up all sorts of road blocks, as if to defend the corruption.
The ‘tension and gridlock’ Mr.  Ramkarran is talking about, therefore, is traced right to the door of the PPP regime, so if he foolishly thinks that an unremorseful and  unrepentant  PPP regime will be better off calling early elections instead of changing its nasty ways, just so that the PPP could regain its parliamentary majority and end gridlock, then he has to be the latest in a line of self-contradictory politicians.
Worse still, he suggested that if the elections results do not reflect a change from the existing status quo that the next best step is for the parties to consider shared  governance. In one quantum leap, he went from self-contradictory to flat out self-delusional.
Did he really think this concept through before hitting his keyboard? If he did, he would have known that the PPP had myriad opportunities since 1992 to engage in shared governance; even before corruption became pervasive corruption, but it squandered  those opportunities because certain people had a personal agenda to enrich themselves at the expense of the state.  Political  entitlement  opened the door for personal enrichment, and  Guyanese did not like what they saw.
But this ‘pervasive corruption’ did not start after Mr. Jagdeo became President; it started before he became President and simply grew from a bruise to a festering sore!
And this is where the PPP will have a problem trying to consider shared governance: because of outstanding and ongoing acts of corruption that would require time for the thieves to complete the process of ripping off the state. Some so-called projects will need more than this current term to bear fruits for the crooks, so shared-governance has to be a back burner item.
Therefore, it is clear to me that the corrupt PPP regime cannot afford to be onboard in shared  governance  with an Opposition that is demanding accountability when the regime is engaging in cover-ups.
And that is why I find it absolutely ludicrous and downright preposterous for Mr. Ramkarran to charge that the “Opposition has other ideas” when the government tried to get it to cooperate on policies, because the truth is, the government wanted to continue business as usual and the Opposition said no. It was the main reason why the Opposition ended up having a parliamentary majority: because voters wanted to end the corruption in government.
To the  Ramkarrans, Ramotars, Luncheons and Teixeiras in and out of Guyana: early elections will not be seen by voters as an option to end gridlock. Early elections will be seen by voters as a sign that the government is determined not to change its dirty ways, because ever since November 28, 2011, the amount of information that has been emerging about the truly corrupt and uncaring nature of the PPP has definitely damaged the PPP much more than in pre-2011.
There is also nothing major that the PPP and the Ramotar Administration can sell to the nation, and especially the traditional PPP support base, that things have changed from the Jagdeo era. So what makes anyone, especially Mr. Ramkarran, think early elections will benefit the PPP, including giving it a lead role in any shared  governance arrangement?
Mr. Ramkarran has to be aware that this is 2013 and not 1964 or even 1992, and that after Cheddi Jagan died in 1997, the PPP started its own slow march to the political cemetery when it eventually allowed a little boy to try his hands at a big man’s job, only to watch as the little boy used his hands to help himself and his buddies!
What I can say of Mr. Ramkarran is that given he publicly promised in early 2011 to tackle corruption if he became President and then wound up parting ways with the PPP because of a column on ‘pervasive corruption’, he gives me the impression that had he been the PPP’s presidential candidate he would have presided differently from Mr. Ramotar and we probably would have had a different type of national conversation.
However, he has to be careful to stay on message and not wander off onto issues that don’t  resonate with the majority of Guyanese, who merely want changes in government and not necessarily early elections, unless early elections will result in a complete change of government.
Emile Mervin

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