Is Moses Nagamootoo killing his legacy?

Apr 24, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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When you have been in politics for so long as Moses Nagamootoo has, passing through a multiplicity of transitions and witnessing the unnecessary toxic impurities of power for over fifty years and most of all, escaping the insanity of unbridled power, your praxis is not only admirable, but rich in texture, shape and achievements. One can hardly debate the fact that Moses is the primary cause of the fall of the PPP, a party that is so narcissistically emblazoned with messianic miasma that Guyana owes him a debt Guyanese can never repay.
As the Prime Minister of Guyana, Moses is gradually dissolving his legacy.  Why he would want to do that is really incomprehensible and inscrutable. Compared with every other leader in every other party with the exception of Hamilton Green of the now defunct Good and Green party, and Oscar Clarke of the PNC, Moses Nagamootoo is the third most experienced, active politician in this country. In the context of Green’s ‘retirement” and the fading limelight of Clarke, Nagamootoo, as the current Prime Minister, can easily be classified as Guyana most enduring practising politician.
Nagamootoo had a brief stint in power under the PPP, holding the portfolio of Local Government, then Information Minister. Events subsequent to that constitute one of the greatest political tragedies in Guyana. Generally seen as the logical inheritor of Cheddi Jagan’s leader position, Mrs. Janet Jagan unleashed a Machiavellian, tyrannical plot against Nagamootoo that to this day remains maybe third only to the ouster of Peter D’Aguiar from power during the coalition years of PNC and UF in the mid-sixties, and the conspiracy that led to the death of Walter Rodney.
Refusing to bestow him with the leader’s position, the PPP harassed Nagamootoo out of the party and government; the rest is history. The contours of his career had led to the recapture of power by the PNC, an unthinkable, impossible result, had the PNC gone into the election by itself in 2015.  Nagamootoo became Prime Minister in 2015 and his role and performance in government are clashing seriously and in destructive fashion with his historical role.
First, most Guyanese across race, culture and party lines believe that he does not hold the kind of power he should, given his seminal role in the election results. Nagamootoo’s credibility took a harsh denting when his portfolio is compared to Sam Hinds’s.
Hinds had policy-making power, Moses does not have that.  Secondly, Moses needs some active minds around him because he endorses positions that are unpopular, positions that inexperienced politicians in the government make, that he Moses, should know better.
For example, it had to be a low moment in his illustrious career when parents, concerned citizens and students walked out of a meeting he had at the National Cultural Centre over VAT on tuition at private schools. What was unbelievable is the lack of judgement on the part of this enduring politician. He knew the government was not going to remove the tax, so why meet such a determined group knowing you could not help them?
Moses is heading for trouble and he should pull back ASAP. In a column yesterday, he praised the construction of Durban Park. That is one of the most egregious post-colonial mistakes of the Overdeveloped State in Guyana. The project as a waste of money and was totally unnecessary and becomes indecent in the context of an ocean of priorities of this poor country.
I will have more to say on the fiasco and the involvement of Moses and Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine in some of the repugnant misdirections of the APNU+AFC regime.
Finally, in that very column, in praise of his government, Moses pointed to the holding of the local government elections. It was better to stay quiet. The local government elections of 2016 in several dimensions have not enhanced general democracy in Guyana.
The City Council is a tyrannical regime that needs to be replaced and fresh elections called. But why mention local government elections when Moses’s own party, the AFC, failed miserably in capturing any NDC in PPP strongholds and in areas where Indian people predominate.
The local government elections of 2016 were graphic indications to the AFC that it needs to rethink its approach to people and power. Sadly, it has not done so and time will not wait for the AFC and Moses Nagamootoo.
If Moses persists in writing that column, every line he pens, he should ask himself if what will be published will harm his legacy. He said the Cummingsburg Accord needs revamping. That wish maybe has come too late.

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