The great leap backwards at Port Mourant

Aug 18, 2013 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party Donald Ramotar took a great leap backwards at the 30th Congress of the People’s Progressive Party on 2nd August at Port Mourant. Ramotar’s rambling, vituperative tirade is a threat to the prospect of inclusionary and participatory democracy. It is a grave disappointment to citizens who had any interest in fostering national unity.
Ramotar had the opportunity at the PPP’s first congress in five years to mend his broken party, repair his own damaged presidential record and recapture public support. He lost it. He went instead on an unapologetic and uncompromising offensive against the Opposition in the National Assembly, the free media and former members who dared to criticise the Party.
Ramotar, addressing congress delegates, seemed never to have understood the difference between the quality of statesmanship required of a national leader and the variety of showmanship displayed by rookie office-seekers.
Ramotar’s attacks on the National Assembly, however, will hurt, rather than help to nurture him through the remainder of his neuralgic presidency. He did not understand that the congress could have been an occasion to encourage party members to see the need to pursue a more cooperative and collaborative approach with the parliamentary majority.
He did not understand that, unless he has a guarantee of the perpetual support of the Alliance For Change, some accommodation will be have to be made in order to secure the agreement of A Partnership for National Unity for the passage of legislation of interest to all sides and the entire nation. He did not understand what the British call Healey’s first law of politics, that is, “When you are in a hole, stop digging.”  So, he kept on.
Ramotar  characterised the National Assembly as “a wound on the body politic of our nation…that is festering and reopening every time a sensible, moral and costed development project is stalled because the Opposition wants to hold back progress or the cheap publicity or promoting agendas inimical to our people.” This absurdity set the tone for what might well be seen as the single most damaging address of his career.
The PPP’s big disappointment has been its deserved loss of the parliamentary majority in the November 2011 general and regional elections. The Party, since then, has complained of having been “tried and tested by the one-seat majority of the opposition APNU and AFC in the National Assembly.” No amount of invective will change that reality.
Ramotar’s description of the opposition as “those who seek to reduce our parliament to a farce and impede our efforts to invest in our future” and his belief that the opposition was “crippling Guyana” and that it had taken a “nonsensical” stance on development, are irresponsible and imprudent. They have the potential to pollute the political atmosphere and damage the prospect of dialogue between APNU and the PPPC.
Ramotar’s allegations that the Opposition in the National Assembly “tried to use Parliament to block social and economic progress” are simply false. His claim that the Opposition “voted down the solar panel project for people in the interior stopping Amerindian communities from enjoying basic services to which all people are entitled [and that it] voted down Amerindian Land Titling stopping people in those communities from developing their own projects and creating their own wealth” is a dangerous fallacy.
Vishwa Mahadeo, Chairman of the PPP’s East Berbice-Corentyne Region and himself a Member of the National Assembly, gave his full support to Ramotar’s onslaught on the Opposition. Mahadeo denounced the present parliamentary dispensation as being characterised by constant deadlock and was essentially “non-functioning.”  He referred to APNU and the AFC as “vicious predators” who aimed to destroy development.
Ramotar then directed his wrath to former PPP Central Committee members Hari Narayen “Ralph” Ramkarran and Moses Nagamootoo. Both were Ramotar’s rivals who nurtured hopes of winning the PPP’s nomination as presidential candidate for the 2011 general and regional elections. Both, however, subsequently resigned from the Party. Ramotar contended that both of them benefitted materially from the party for several years. He accused them of “jealousy and rejection at previous congresses” which led them to abandon the party in a “flurry of lies.”
Ramotar, still in attack mode, then snarled at the independent press. He accused both Stabroek News and Kaieteur News of being exploiters of “racial and class hate.” The Stabroek News, he said, had been founded at the hands of a “colonial sympathiser.” That newspaper, as a result, had as its main objective the targeting of the PPP and the promotion of what he called a “colonial ideal.”
There is no doubt that Donald Ramotar’s historic address to the 30th Congress of the People’s Progressive Party has been a great leap backwards for governance and a measurable movement away from the goal of national unity. Guyana at this time needs to find a path forward to civil discourse and to collaboration among all parties, civil society and non-governmental organizations, in order to contribute to national development. Guyana needs an open door to “inclusionary democracy” as prescribed by the Constitution. The PPP congress at Port Mourant shut the door and turned off the lights.

 

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