CCJ’s ruling has unintended consequences for Jagdeo

Jul 01, 2018 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

The past week was a disastrous one for former President Bharrat Jagdeo. As he waited, obviously with bated breath, for the third-term ruling by the Caribbean Court of Justice in Trinidad, he did not know that the ruling would herald the beginning of the end of a miserable and troublesome political career.
For now, Mr. Jagdeo would, as he said at a press conference early last week, hold on to the positions of General Secretary (GS) and leader of the PPP while it prepares to sit out another five years in Opposition to a Coalition that has already made significant strides in bringing Guyana back.
Government is now busy setting Guyana up for economic transformation, integrating the traditional economic pillars including agriculture, gold, diamond and bauxite mining, with our new oil and gas industry.
This direction has a very important element – development of Guyana’s people. Even Jagdeo’s negativity and his reported encouragement of supporters to refuse to take part in any community programme will not stop their development.
Now that it is very clear that he will never again be Guyana’s President, nor Prime Minister, nor First Vice President. Perhaps his days as the powerhouse in his party are numbered too. He is already an objectionable political liability, so one wonders what other uses the PPP could have for him going forward.
Clearly anticipating a possible backlash from the CCJ ruling, Jagdeo called a press conference earlier in the week to state emphatically that he will remain the PPP’s GS and that he would play an integral role in any PPP government formed after 2020. The trouble is the electorate has no plans to return that party to government; not the party that pillaged the nation’s resources and whittled away the people’s benefits from every development project, big and small.
This is the party that allowed the narcotics trade to dominate the economy, and almost rendered the Guyana Police Force toothless and worthless.
The CCJ’s ruling had unintended consequences for Jagdeo. His party now has to find another General Secretary to take it forward as its presidential candidate. This one can’t follow the old precedent that saw party founder Dr. Cheddi Jagan, his wife Janet, and more recently Donald Ramotar taking up that mantle.
So would their central executive, the central committee and the rank and file now allow a man with no useful political future to continue to lead them in the coming months and years?
In addition, why would anyone with leadership ambitions allow him/herself to continue to be ordered around by Jagdeo? The ruling has diminished his power and influence, though the esteemed Caribbean justices probably did not consider that. Internal rebellion and open dissent are now staring him in the face.
Still trying to maintain his grip on power, he said last week that he plans to have a ‘hand’ in choosing their next presidential candidate. That will be interesting to see.
It is generally believed that the party’s old guard in particular are not fond of Jagdeo and his style of leadership, as they have intimated at various times.
As an example, the CCJ’s live streaming of the sitting had barely ended when former GS Donald Ramotar said publicly that he welcomed the ruling, describing it as the “best for Guyana”.
Writing on Facebook last Thursday, Clement Rohee said he had “always maintained an open mind” so the judges’ ruling came as no surprise to him. He wrote, “A perusal of the records would show that Reepu Daman Persaud, Feroze Mohammed, Bernard DeSantos and myself, among others, served on the Special Select Committee of the National Assembly to draw up a new constitution before the next general elections due in 2001. It was in that body that a recommendation to the effect that ‘a person shall hold the office of President for a maximum of two terms and those two terms shall be consecutive’ was adopted”.
With big revenues expected from oil and gas in a couple of years, it is hard to imagine both the old and new guard in the PPP allowing a fading, desperate Jagdeo to manipulate anyone into the presidential candidacy. Lessons learned from the Donald Ramotar debacle probably still sting.
Nevertheless, there is little doubt that the CCJ’s ruling has set the proverbial cat among the pigeons in the party. Mr. Jagdeo’s ‘usefulness’ would definitely remain a topic for debate at Freedom House.

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