There is rising support for Jagdeo

Mar 27, 2018 Letters

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Dear Editor,

For Freddie Kissoon, (whose vote at the 2015 elections must seemingly be counted among those allegedly garnered by the APNU/AFC coalition) “one of the positive outcomes of politics in the current era in Guyana is the assignment of the PPP to long years in the wilderness.” What an asinine comment from Kissoon, made in the face of a huge groundswell of support for the PPP led by Bharrat Jagdeo.
Make no mistake, even Guyanese who would not ordinarily be perceived to be PPP supporters are clamouring for the return of the PPP. A frequent comment in the streets and market places is: “Life was better under the PPP.”
Kissoon is a man about town, with nothing to do and a lot of time to do it. He knows the PPP is the most popular party in Guyana. He knows that the ordinary people of Guyana are suffering at the hands of brutish, vindictive, insensitive and uncaring APNU/PNC/AFC political neophytes but Kissoon, who does not particularly see himself as Indian, cannot bear the evidence of the rising tide of support for the PPP.
Writing in the Kaieteur News of March 9th, 2018, Kissoon while predicting that oil income will bring economic transformation and while referring to the expected oil income as a gold mine, very significantly asserted that “the incumbent party (APNU/PNC/AFC) will not give up that gold mine”.
This statement should be interpreted to mean that APNU/PNC/AFC will not give up political power. After all, to make sense of Kissoon’s prediction, it must be understood that control of the gold mine goes hand in hand with political control and power.
What must be understood from Kissoon’s statement therefore, is that even if the PPP/C were to defeat the APNU/PNC/AFC (as the current mood of the people suggests it undoubtedly would) the APNU/PNC/AFC would shed its mask of constitutional conformism and the PNC’s known propensity for elections fraud, thuggery and violence would be unleashed, in fulfillment of Kissoon’s prediction that “ the incumbent party will not give up that gold mine.”
In this scenario, there should be little wonder about the likely role GECOM may play. It’s role in the 2015 elections has not been forgotten and a legal challenge to those elections has been affected by an unnatural and discomforting sloth in the judicial system which, given the nature of the challenges to those results, facilitates the continued exercise of power by APNU/PNC/AFC with an extremely thin majority of votes.
The second significant point that Kissoon made in his article is that “certain powerful governments in the world, with formidable influence in Guyana WILL NOT ALLOW the PPP back in power with Jagdeo in the driving seat.”
On reading this, my mind immediately went to the governments of the USA, Britain and Canada. In 2015, the US and Canada had two very active diplomats in Guyana, Brian Hunt and Nicky Giles. They will long be remembered by the present suffering people of Guyana.
Kissoon makes an extremely serious contention. He has described himself as an investigative journalist. Was this prediction the result of his penetrative investigative journalism? This is not a statement Kissoon would make lightly. Every right thinking Guyanese would interpret Kissoon’s statement to mean that” those powerful governments with formidable influence in Guyana” will or may be planning to take either overt or covert action to prevent Jagdeo and the PPP from winning and taking power in the 2020 elections.
Kissoon has laid a serious indictment principally against the British, American and Canadian governments. Guyanese are well aware of the role of the American and British governments in the destabilization of the PPP government of the sixties, under the leadership of the greatest nationalist of our country, Cheddi Jagan and of the direct involvement of the US in efforts to install Forbes Burnham and the PNC in government here.
History has recorded the untold suffering, the thuggery, the racially directed violence instigated by the PNC against Indians in Guyana; the near-to starvation conditions and the gross human rights violations inflicted upon the people of Guyana by the illegal PNC regime and to which the USA for many years turned a blind eye.
Does Kissoon have information that the United States is to behave similarly in 2020, so that we are likely to see a return of the infamous role played by the US in the sixties with devastating consequences for our people.
It is now more than two weeks since Kissoon made this very assertive prediction. To date none of the powerful governments represented here in Guyana have said anything by way of disclaimer or to disavow Kissoon’s foretelling of their intention not to allow a return of Jagdeo and the PPP to the seat of government. What should the people of Guyana understand by their silence?
Kissoon also contended that only jumbies from the cemetery are flocking to Jagdeo and the PPP. By now, Kissoon would have seen the photographs of Jagdeo’s audience recently at Babu Jaan, Corentyne. There were nearly 5000 jumbies in attendance. I would like Kissoon to know that I too, am a jumbie.
In 2015 GECOM told us that 202,694 jumbies flocked to the PPP and the overwhelming evidence is that come 2020 the number of jumbies flocking to the PPP would significantly surpass the 2015 numbers.
I never met Kissoon. I do not know him but when I first saw his photograph, I thought he looked like a person who could flock to Jagdeo and the PPP.

Sincerely
Selwyn Persaud

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