Why we expect the PPP to change if their rivals won’t change also?

Sep 13, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

If people in this country think that there is going to be new leadership in the PPP; that young men and women will emerge into its hierarchy and a realistic, innovative transformation in the PPP will occur, they will be disappointed.
The PPP is not a different species that Guyanese cannot understand. The PPP is part of an enduring, primitive political culture. Its essential mentality is no different from the PNC and the WPA. The new guy, the AFC has become a huge embodiment of that deadly, anachronistic culture.
Just look at Rupert Roopnaraine. Hide his party affiliation and explain his recent political maneuverability to a stranger and that stranger would think you are talking about a PPP or a PNC politician. We will treat the recent escapades of the WPA and Roopnaraine in a separate feature.
When the PPP was in power, we called on their leaders to denounce erring party stalwarts, condemn egregious ministerial mistakes, show remorse at wrong directions that backfired but other parties when they got into refused to do what they wanted PPP leaders to do.
The answer lies in political culture. Since there will be a separate article on the WPA, I will not go into further discussion but I did expose a very nasty piece of old political culture by the WPA that it manifested three months ago and repeating it here is pungently relevant. What the WPA leaders including Rupert Roopnaraine, Clive Thomas, Dr. Maurice Odle, Andaiye, my friend David Hinds, Tacuma Ogunseye and others did recently borders on depraved politics that is identical to any abomination the PPP and PNC committed recently, in the distant past or in contemporary times.
It shows how trapped this country is in a political culture that is extremely sick.
There was a conspicuous showdown between the WPA and the PNC over the removal of Dr. Roopnaraine from the Ministry of Education. In the ensuing brouhaha, the WPA using unambiguous language, said that WPA as a political party and constituent member of the APNU was not consulted on Roopnaraine’s appointment as a minister. In other words, it was not a WPA decision.
In response to this, I penned a piece with the caption; “Clive Thomas is a hero but he has to explain this incredible hypocrisy,” KN, June 21, 2017. I called upon the WPA and Clive Thomas to explain if the WPA rejected President Cheddi Jagan choosing a Minister on his own from the WPA in 1992, then how come the WPA allowed President Granger to allocate a Minister from the WPA without the WPA formally selecting him?
To date, the WPA has never explained this double standard to the Guyanese people. The answer lies in the political culture we have that never carried with it certain sacred values and still doesn’t. More on the WPA later.
The AFC is no different. Armed with commonsense and an elementary sense of strategizing, the AFC used language and strategies to oppose the PPP that any schoolboy could have advised them on. You want support, you want votes, then denounce an authoritarian government in the most tempestuous ways citing corruption, immorality, incestuousness, race politics, heartless policies.
The AFC did just that. It won seats in 2006, 2011 then got into power in 2015. And even before the ink was dry on the AFC’s ministerial appointment documents, Dr. David Hinds accused the AFC of being power drunk.
The answer lies in the ancient political culture the politicians from the fifties have embraced and allowed to take over their minds and souls.
So we return to the PPP. It is not going to dump Mr. Jagdeo despite the dangerous impurities in his incitement games. It is not going to touch its aging troglodytes who have lost touch with reality. Luncheon, Teixeira, Rohee, Indra Chandarpaul, Hydar Ally, Komal Chand, among others are all heading toward their seventies with one or two already at the top of the seventies. But they are the PPP and the PPP is them.
The PPP is not going to offer any periodic compromises to the Coalition Government. It is going to continue to mislead and instill fear in sugar workers. It is beating a non-stop war drum.
The reason why it cannot transform is because it is a victim of Guyana’s tragic political culture. Just as sad and tragic is the unchanging nature of the PPP’s antagonists – PNC. AFC, WPA. All three are in power. All three are happy to continue their expressions of that tragic political culture.

2 thoughts on “Why we expect the PPP to change if their rivals won’t change also?”

Kassem_B September 13, 2017 at 5:18 am

‘Why we expect the PPP to change if their rivals won’t change also?’
Sorry Freddie
You and your own writings have landed you in that position of no where.
It is not too late but maybe just.
Gtloyal September 13, 2017 at 8:08 am

To initiate change, there is need for an effort to educate the people to vote on issues. This must be a continuous nation wide campaign, not for any specific political party but one of education. Could it be led by Mr Freddie Kissoon?