Is President Ramotar ungrateful to Bharrat Jagdeo?

Mar 25, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There can be absolutely no doubt that Ralph Ramkarran would have been the president of Guyana if the PPP was a democratic organization that allowed its members to vote in a countrywide election for the PPP presidential candidate in 2011.
Mr. Ramotar got the selection because he was facilitated by Mr. Jagdeo. By the time Mr. Jagdeo’s tenure came to an end, not even Cheddi Jagan and Mrs. Jagan had so manipulated the PPP to shape into a footcloth of the President of the country. Jagan and his wife did not have to use hegemony to control the PPP. The PPP leaders just naturally allowed them that domination.
In Mr. Jagdeo’s case, his control was almost phenomenal when you take into consideration that he was not the leader of the party at anytime and was by comparison with other PPP stalwarts during his presidency a political nobody not known for leadership qualities and intellectual erudition.
President Hoyte controlled the PNC as a one-man show but Hoyte’s inheritance came at a time when he had already established himself as a top man in the PNC’s history. In Mr. Jagdeo’s case no one in the PPP ever heard about him before he became President. Testifying for Jagdeo in the libel Jagdeo brought against me, Roger Luncheon said that he first knew about Mr. Jagdeo in 1992. How Mr. Jagdeo managed to subdue the PPP as a virtual little boy in the PPP makes for fantastic reading.
Mr. Ramotar then knew he could not manoeuvre his chess game away from Mr. Jagdeo’s imprint after he became president in 2011. This explains why after two years in power, all President Ramotar’s men and women are Mr. Jagdeo’s creatures. Mr. Ramotar was so shameless that he didn’t even add a new name to his 2011 Cabinet. Every face in that Cabinet was Mr. Jagdeo’s creation.
Since Mr. Ramotar became president, all the important governmental and State functionaries, Ministers and party seniors believe that the real power behind the throne is Mr. Jagdeo. Therefore, when the editor of the Chronicle received a document about Mr. Jagdeo with a request by whoever to publish, she knew that it was the logical thing to do.
Anyone in her place would have done that. The understanding was that this was a thing in favour of Mr. Jagdeo and therefore it came from a powerful source and must be printed.
I don’t think the thought ever entered her head that she should check with anyone because it was unnecessary. The thing about a poll showing Mr. Jagdeo as the most favoured presidential candidate for the 2016 elections first appeared in the Guyana Times and given Jagdeo’s role in the Guyana Times, the Chronicle editor felt it was a done deal.
The demotion of the editor is unfair for one fundamental reason – every other State personnel in her position would have done the same. If it is true that Mr. Ramotar acted against her then he is perhaps personally insulted.
He probably didn’t like the format in which the item was printed but Mr. Ramotar cannot look Guyanese in the eyes and tell them that he is not beholden to Mr. Jagdeo. Mr. Jagdeo made Mr. Ramotar the President of Guyana. My guess is that Mr. Ramotar would have had to “humble” if Mr. Jagdeo had personally informed him that he wanted the item as the lead story in the Chronicle.
People, especially the political pundits all over Guyana must be gripped with thoughts of a fight between a Jagdeo nest and a Ramnotar cabal. I think that is fiction. Mr. Ramotar is annoyed at the way the item was presented on the front page of the Chronicle. It begins and ends there. Mr. Ramotar is going to agree to a snap poll if the voices he looks up to for guidance in the PPP want an early election.
As I was saying to Tacuma Oguenseye in the Kitty Market last Saturday morning, people in this country do not know the extent to which Mr. Ramotar is a second fiddle politician. He was never an initiator. He was never a thinker. He was never a doer. He was always a secondary guy.
All those who think Mr. Ramotar has political substance should ask themselves why Mr. Jagdeo would have moved heaven and earth to see that Ramotar get the presidential slot for the 2011 elections. Once greater voices in the PPP want a snap poll Ramotar will comply whether or not he is the presidential candidate.
The Chronicle thing irked him but he will come around. Little boys and messengers always do.

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Is President Ramotar ungrateful to Bharrat Jagdeo?

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