President Ramotar is enraged. Is he a blackmailer?

Feb 25, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

At the rate President Donald Ramotar is going with his laughable demagoguery, like his predecessor and benefactor, Bharrat Jagdeo, he is going to lose the respect of even the young underlings in his party. Near the end of his tenure, the young generation lost respect and admiration for Jagdeo because he just consistently put his foot in his mouth.
When a leader sets out to make an analytical statement about his country’s politics he has to ensure the foolproof nature of his commentary so that there are no naked contradictions that expose him at the level of facts not opinions.
A good example would be a Prime Minister or President criticizing strike action by deeming the union unreasonable to refuse a twenty-five percent offer when his critics and detractors can openly say that he was lying because he is on record of offering only five percent. Now why would a leader be so foolish? The answer is not all leaders are bright.
President Ramotar is drifting from one sordid rhetorical mess to another. The time has come for him to seek serious advice assuming that within the castle of the PPP there are astute, smart people. His semantic hilarities are slowly erasing his credibility.
Days before he became President, he exclaimed that the 2011 elections were rigged.
As Vice-President of the Boy Scouts, I contested the presidency of the organization, tampered with the process yet lost. Only one word describes such morbid incompetence – asininity. How can you control an election yet come out as the loser? It simply makes no sense.
So APNU, according to the gospel of Donald Ramotar, rigged the 2011 elections but APNU did not win the presidency or secure a majority in Parliament. Of course, the nation’s curiosity was not satisfied because Mr. Ramotar did not explain how the rigging cost APNU the plurality.
For me the moment of both exasperation and laughter was his pappy show at the 50th anniversary of UG’s birth. I have written about it before and I will keep it in focus because it is one potent area of presidential politics that reveals the total ineptness of Mr. Ramotar.
Trying to sound like Obama, he threw his hands up and said to the nation via the media that opposition and Government must not paralyze the nation with their different ideas; it would better if each idea is tested and if they failed, at least they were tried.
The brutal reality is that once Mr. Ramotar looks over his shoulder and sees the ideas floating in front of his face, he turns around to see the attached name tags and once the names, AFC, APNU, ACDA, Red Thread, TUC, Kaieteur News, Stabroek News, 1823 Monument Coalition, Georgetown City Hall, Transparency International, Public Service Union, Mr. Ramotar runs away.
He refuses to stay and test the ideas coming from these stakeholders.
Next, Mr. Ramotar tried a little thing, once again hoping he would look good. He didn’t. He told the Public Service Union that he would negotiate directly with it on wages and salaries but can only offer what the Government can afford.
Mr. Ramotar’s logic, semantics and epistemology are difficult to comprehend. If you can only give what you can afford why should the union negotiate with you when the result is already known – you can only give what you can afford so no point pressing you on a figure that the union wants.
Would it not have been better to simply say – “I will negotiate with you directly.” And leave it at that.
You would have thought that Mr. Ramotar would have learned his lesson. Speaking at the opening of Hope Bridge, again he tried in vain to emulate President Obama with appealing pleas and attached emotions.
He said; “The opposition should not be degenerating into blackmailing type of politics where you gave me this and I will give you that…it outrages me to have to engage in that blackmailing type of politics “ But Mr. Ramotar maybe doing some blackmailing himself.
The Procurement Commission is a constitutional body which is not yet alive because President Ramotar wants the law to be changed so that his Cabinet has the final decision in that his government can object to an award by the Procurement Commission. Mr. Ramotar is saying give me that clause and I will give you the Commission.
Mr. Ramotar is saying give me the City Council and I will give you money to clean up the city. Sounds like the very thing Ramotar is accusing the opposition of. It has a name which the President was quick to pronounce – blackmail.

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President Ramotar is enraged. Is he a blackmailer?

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