Jimmy Carter is coming...again

Jimmy Carter is coming…again

Apr 19, 2015 Features / Columnists, My Column

Former United States President, Jimmy Carter, is said to be heading back to Guyana in time for the elections. I remember when he came ahead of the 1992 elections. Desmond Hoyte was President and all votes were counted centrally.
Carter met Hoyte at the request of the then opposition and there were changes. I remember going to the press conference after they had met. Hoyte and Carter shared that press conference and many things were spoken. For example, the People’s Progressive Party opted to have the elections postponed until the new measures were put in place and there were many measures.
Carter got Hoyte to agree to have the vote counted at the place of poll despite the contention that in some areas the community would know that not everyone supported a certain party. He also got Hoyte to agree to revamp the elections commission. Overseas voting had already been abolished, again at the request of the PPP.
For its part, Dr Cheddi Jagan agreed to continue the economic measures Hoyte had put in place. Indeed, I sometimes raise my eyebrows in surprise when the PPP talks about the state of the economy in 1992. The change had already begun and such was its influence that Dr Jagan vowed to continue whatever Hoyte was doing when Carter came.
I still remember the joy the PPP felt when it got those changes and so the stage was set for the elections of 1992. It is history that the PPP won those elections, but what the PPP is not saying is that it caused Jimmy Carter to vow never to return to Guyana, because the then President Bharrat Jagdeo refused to accept the changes proposed by Carter in the interest of national development.
At the time there were talks between the PPP and the People’s National Congress, because there were things that were not being honoured. Carter came to ensure that nothing untoward occurred in the country, but Jagdeo told Carter that he was not prepared to accept some of Carter’s proposals. So Carter told a press conference at the Pegasus Hotel that he was done with Guyana. He did not have good things to say about the government back then.
Something must have happened to get him to change his mind. I still remember him heading to Venezuela and I told myself that Guyana had really lost a great ally. Now Carter is coming back.
Many of today’s voters were too young to remember Carter coming to Guyana but those who did, smiled and pulled out a saying that PPP supporters made popular in Guyana ahead of the 1992 elections. “Anywhere Carter goes there is a change in Government.”
The advertisements tout the great things that the PPP did during its tenure, but something must be wrong for so many people to want to see the back of the government. Of course, there were the numerous extra-judicial killings, rampant corruption which the PPP attempted to deny, the discrimination and of course, the absence of collaboration between the government and the opposition over crucial things.
In these later years I saw the attacks against the British, American and Canadian envoys who dared to criticize some of the decisions by the government. For example, the then American ambassador Brent Hardt was critical of the manner in which radio was liberalized and he got what has become known as the feral blast from Education Minister Priya Manickchand.
To her credit, Priya was being a good servant of the government. The feral blast had to be delivered and the Foreign Minister was not there, so at the Cabinet level, the abhorrent task fell to her.
British High Commissioner Andrew Ayre was critical of the decision by the government to not hold local government elections and he got a dose from the government. The attacks against the envoys came just as they were at the end of their tour of duty. Canadian envoy Dr Nicole Giles got hers soon after she got here.
There are many things that have happened since Carter was last here. For one, many of the people who wanted him here back then have died, not least among them Fr Andrew Morrison and David de Caires.

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Jimmy Carter is coming…again

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