I will never accept these names in charge of my country again

Nov 14, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There is a growing debate in this country that the PPP can win the 2020 election. I don’t believe that, but one should not rule out anything in politics. The Caribbean has its share of unpredictable enigmas. Bruce Golding left the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and formed his own unit. He ran against the JLP in general elections and lost. Then Bruce Golding rejoined the JLP and took it to power. Basdeo Panday, the leader of the UNC, and a former Prime Minister of Trinidad, actually lost out as leader of a party he helped to found and build.
Suriname elected Desi Bouterse against a backdrop of an arrest warrant by Holland for drug trafficking. In the middle of an election mandate, Patrick Manning called a national poll in Trinidad and lost. This was certainly a weird example of political eccentricity. The craziest of these situations perhaps is in Guyana. When President Janet Jagan stepped down, she overlooked huge, historic names in the PPP and anointed a very inexperienced individual to succeed her. In fact, Roger Luncheon testifying in Jagdeo’s libel trial against this columnist and this newspaper said he only heard the name Bharrat Jagdeo after the PPP won the 1992 general elections. Six years after that, Jagdeo was President and Luncheon’s boss.
There have been deep demographic metamorphoses taking place in Guyana since President Burnham descended into unrelenting autocracy; that is more than 40 years ago. These changes make election results a guessing game. The PPP thinks it had an inbuilt ethnic majority that gave it sempiternal possession of Guyana. Changing demographics proved the PPP leaders to be short-sighted. The PNC thinks it will hold on to all African-Guyanese votes and win election after election with the ballots of the Amerindians. These permutations overlook modern thinking. There is the mixed race category whose electoral loyalty is not a settled issue. There are educated young Indians that would frown on the PPP and young educated Africans who may stay at home rather than continue with an authoritarian PNC.
All things are possible in elections. The reality of that came out vividly for the world to see in the US presidential elections. The names Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton evoked charisma and popularity in the US. These are names that the American people will go for anytime. That wasn’t to be. Mrs. Clinton underestimated changing times in the US. People want to see food on their table and money in their pockets to feed their families. The yearning for food and money defeated the charisma of the two Clintons and Obama.
Trump is now in power and rebellions against him are sweeping parts of the United States. Demonstrators are saying he is not their president. Let me telegraph my thoughts in November 2016: I will not accept some names in the PPP to govern my country if the PPP wins in 2020, though I doubt that would ever happen. I start with Bharrat Jagdeo. This is an instinctively racist bigoted, tribalist, supremacist politician that has no respect for the finer points of democracy. The horrible destruction of the economy under Jagdeo with the collapse of the sugar industry and the waste of dozens of billions in the Skeldon factory should disqualify this man from ever holding a public sector job again.
It was under Mr. Jagdeo’s reign, professor Clive Thomas coined the term “The Criminalized State.” Mr. Jagdeo’s tenure saw the empowerment of Roger Khan and the hegemony of Henry Green as Police Commissioner, even though the US Government advised Jagdeo that Green was in league with drug barons.
Roger Luncheon and Clement Rohee have no place in a modern democracy. The former is flippant about democracy and thinks the state is a machine in the hands of PPP rulers to manipulate. Forbes Burnham was accused of merging the State with the ruling party. Roger Luncheon did exactly that for the 23 years he held the post of “Chief of Staff” of the presidency. Guyana should not tolerate the continuation of Clement Rohee in government. Mr. Rohee is an unfortunate character that is incapable of learning any mistake from the past. He is simply incapable of rational thought.
One hopes the era of Gail Teixeira is over. Ms. Teixeira patterned herself after Mrs. Jagan who was the ultimate Stalinist. Ms. Teixeira perfected the art of quiet Stalinism in Guyana. She is a Machiavellian ideologue that has no intention of ever recognizing the role of constitutional power in Guyana. If these troglodytes ever come to power again, I will denounce and reject them.

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