Trump, Jagdeo and slime eels

Sep 14, 2017 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Donald Trump is regarded by a growing number of global citizens as someone who is unfit to be the President of the USA, but at home Trump has his supporters. He enjoys substantial numbers of embracers of his ideology even if those admirers come from selected parts of the US.
One of the strong points of Trump which will become even firmer now that Mrs. Hilary Clinton has written a book (titled, WHAT HAPPENED) on why she lost the presidential contest is that he has never been associated with the power establishment of Washington, D.C.
Anyone who followed Trump’s entry into the presidential race would know that he beat off senators and governors for the Republican nomination because they had a stain that he didn’t. He was not associated with government at any level in Washington D.C. that worked for him; those who secured the votes for him. Published extracts of Mrs. Clinton’s book acknowledged that Trump appealed to people who wanted new faces.
When you talk to a Trump supporter and you ask how that voter could endorse such a person, that supporter will tell you that Mrs. Clinton, this senator, that senator, this governor, that governor have done this and that and Mr. Trump was never part of such things. This was Trump’s trump card and it worked for him.
This was Macron’s major ace in France and it brought him to power. Both Trump and Macron could lose their die hard fanatics if they pursue policies that appear to be establishment trends. But for now, their bandwagoners see them as outsiders who need to go in and change things. We come now to the supporters of Bharrat Jagdeo.
I became deeply cynical about the sudden appearance of people who became columnists in PPP-related newspapers and overnight letter-writers, all in condemnation of the APNU+AFC. This deluge didn’t start last week or last month but since 2015. I referred to such types as slime eels, likening them to the slime eels which have some peculiar physiological features that remind me of these sudden newcomers who see everything that is wrong with the post 2015 administration.
Soon after the government got in there were charges of ethnic discrimination, employment favouritism, wasteful expenditure, wrong policy directions, skullduggery, etc. Those charges in themselves are not unhealthy politics. Strong and enduring critics of the Jagdeo and Ramotar presidencies are currently speaking up against some wrong-doings of the present government. Ardent believers in the PNC and the AFC have identified some unacceptable pathways the APNU+AFC coalition have gone into.
The slime eels are really disgusting creatures in that not even half a word against the oceans, mountains and rivers of depravities that characterized the reign of Jagdeo and Ramotar can be seen in their columns and letters. It clearly shows the disturbing minds that have burst upon the scene.
Eric Phillips of ACDA sees this new appearance as dangerous given their state of mind. This is where the comparison between Trump and Jagdeo comes in and the relevance of the description of slime eels becomes graphic.
Trump supporters could easily be understood. Their president never pursued bad policies when he was in the White House because he was never in the White House. Opposition Leader and leader of the PPP, Bharrat Jagdeo, had de jure power for 12 years (August 1999 – November 2011) and de facto power (November 2011- May 2015). You mean to tell me these slime eels, from wherever they crawled out, did not know about the endangerment of Guyana under Jagdeo and Ramotar?
Any economics student could see that the use of state money to build a hotel was extreme asininity and extreme destructiveness. Why a poor country would want to take money from the Treasury and invest it in a hotel? Which Third World government as poor as Guyana would want to do that? Not even in countries where tourism is a stupendous income-earner has the state gone in that direction.
The pattern has always been minority shareholding by the state. The most modern hotel in Cuba has just gone up with European investors holding majority shares with minority shares for the state.
Jagdeo’s Marriott Hotel was not one of, but the most decadent uses of state funds in the history of the CARICOM nations.
So you open the papers and you see these slime eels writing about the mistakes of the APNU+AFC Government and reminding us of PNC dictatorship in the seventies and eighties completely obfuscating the winds of change Desmond Hoyte ushered in. But Eric Phillips is on to something. These slime eels do not recognize the assassination of Crum-Ewing. And do you know why?

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