No-confidence vote and the two-year gamble

Aug 10, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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There are scholars, commentators and other analysts who cannot accept to include in their research certain concepts, simply because they believe the concepts are too harsh or unpalatable. This is a Guyanese thing that does not obtain elsewhere. I doubt it exists in other countries.
One such academic is Dr. Henry Jeffrey. He wrote a few years back in a letter to the Stabroek News that he does not believe that either the PNC or the PPP Government has done an act that was deliberately designed to hurt another section of the population or another group. You can accuse Jeffrey of being naïve. I don’t think he is. It is simply, he cannot bring himself to see government behaving like that, so such a concept he will not apply in his research.
I hold the opposite view. I think too much deliberate mischief, intended to hurt another side, has been part of the culture of authoritarian power. This concept I find efficacious in my research paper, “Ethnic Power and Ideological Racism: Comparing presidencies in Guyana.” I mentioned several well-planned destructive acts so shaped as to hurt other people. I will mention two only. The Berbice Bridge was not located in New Amsterdam and the athletic track was built in Leonora, the intention in both situations was to devastate certain type of people.
I have repeatedly said to friends and observers in these columns that a researcher cannot come up with a complete understanding of Bharrat Jagdeo’s descent into tyrannical abuse without understanding his mental reaction to a relentless rumour about him in Guyana and the diaspora. My thesis is that Mr. Jagdeo used his macho politics to confront that rumour. Scholars don’t want to incorporate this variable in their work because they find the factor to uncomfortable to use. Surely, this is an unhistorical approach to writing history.
My academic submission is that from Mr. Jagdeo onwards, there has been a well-entrenched attitude of neglect of certain institutions which the PPP Government would want to see die a natural death. In the sphere of nationalism, this can be interpreted as deliberate destruction. This is a serious theoretical position which I believe can be defended.
Space does not allow for enumeration, but briefly, I think those institutions are considered to be bound up with African Guyanese territory or PNC creations. The Botanical Gardens is in a moribund state and will be left like that. The location of a police intelligence unit in the form of a concrete carbuncle on the lawns of Castellani House is an egregious example.
The 1763 Monument and the Square of the Revolution will never be given the attention it deserves under a PPP Government. The Independence Arch on Brickdam and Vlissengen Road has been in derelict condition the past twenty years and will remain like that. UG is going to slowly grind to a halt.
For these reasons, I thought the PNC as the other Leviathan in politics would have tabled the no-confidence motion somewhere in 2013, after it saw that the destructive instinct of the PPP was well preserved after Jagdeo had left. One would have thought that after seeing that the Ramotar Government was comfortable with the perpetuation of a vindictive policy with the accompanying desire to destroy that, the no-confidence motion would have stopped the PPP from continuing in office from the latter part of 2013.
As it turned out, it was left to the AFC to seek a curtailment of the PPP’s tenure by two years. Nothing could have been wiser in Guyanese politics than this no-confidence vote. No matter how unpalatable you find it as a scholar, the PPP is bent on undermining vast areas of national life in this country as part of the politics of vindictiveness, and such a factor needs to be given its weight in scholarly research. To give the PPP two more years, up to November 2016, is a self-erasing act that the opposition, especially the PNC, simply cannot afford.
The PPP outsmarted the PNC hopelessly with the Rodney Commission. It was a total outfoxing of the PNC. First, in my opinion, the Commission’s make-up is questionable. The PNC should never have gone into the process because of this. Secondly, accepting the terms of reference was a crazy act by the PNC. Thirdly, as the propaganda unfolded, the PNC should have adopted a boycott.
Before I move on, it is my unshakeable belief that the Commission will not find the guilty party, and the PPP will be the biggest beneficiary. The PNC should walk away now. The no-confidence motion has saved both Guyana and the PNC. Even if the PPP refuses to resign, the game is over.

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