Latest update February 4th, 2025 9:06 AM
May 06, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Henry Jeffrey held some of the most important Cabinet positions for 17 years with the PPP government beginning from 1992. The portfolios included; housing, health, education, trade. He is now the co-leader of a political party (ANUG – A New United Guyana) with Ralph Ramkarran that will be contesting the upcoming general elections.
As a commentator my job is to analyze such occurrences. More importantly, commentators will be expected to assess the chances of all parties that want to administer the country. I don’t think if I am invited to a talk show or radio programme I will not be asked about winners and losers in the upcoming poll.
At the moment, 21 persons from the Democratic Party in the US want to become president. As soon as each announced their candidacy, the media were on them. The analyses are ongoing. It should be the same in Guyana especially now there is a party that Amerindians feel is dedicated to their specific interests. In Berbice, some high profile lawyers have formed a group to participate in the poll.
Of the new kids on the block, ANUG is the one that titillates the interest of the analyst. Several reasons explain this. First, a founding member, high profile businessman, Terrence Campbell, of Churches’ Chicken fame, left the party days after its formation. Then businessman, Beni Sankar came on board, and copied the pattern of Campbell – he left days after joining.
ANUG has had an inauspicious start. Secondly, citizens’ votes are determined by your history. Once you enter the race, the questions begin to swirl non-stop – who he is, who he think he is, what has he done before, does he have any baggage? This is where ANUG is far more susceptible to devastation than its fellow newcomers.
In commenting on the impossibility of Guyanese voting for Jeffrey based on his 17 years of Cabinet functionalism with the PPP government since 1992, Jeffrey replied three times to me in this newspaper; “For me, ANUG is an idea that is bigger than ANUG itself” – April 26; “Henry Jeffrey Responds to Frederick Kissoon” – April 30; “The narcissist doesn’t care about discovery” – May 2.
In none of those adumbrations, there is even one explanatory line on Jeffrey’s era as a minister. All the rebuttals evaded a discussion of whether Jeffrey has baggage that disqualifies ANUG as a serious contender or has a superlative record of achievements.
All his rejoinders are about the personality and character of Frederick Kissoon. So barefaced is Jeffrey’s graphic evasions, that instead of debating his failures, he cites an example where I didn’t do proper research when I wrote that the ministry worldwide carries the name in front of it as “national security” not “public security.”
Jeffrey informed his readers that Israel has a ministry of public security. Of course, attention is given to the premise of my argument that it should be “national security” not “public security.” Jeffrey simply “proves” I am an incompetent academic because he found a country that has a ministry of public security.
Jeffrey urges me to fact-check when I write but I did write on Jeffrey’s 17-year-old career in a government than any scholar on Caribbean affairs and Caribbean history would tell you was the most undemocratic formation in the history of the Caricom region. And I cited facts, one of which was that he contributed to the mess that UG is in today when he was Minister of Education.
I put many questions to Jeffrey, some of which I will repeat here. Jeffrey consistently asserts in his weekly Stabroek News columns that the Jagdeo regime was a practitioner of racist discrimination so I asked and asking again – when these crudities and cruelties were part of Jagdeo’s governance style, what moral positions Jeffrey adopted privately in the PPP leadership and publicly so the Guyanese people could have judged him?
A recurring decimal in Jeffrey’s columns is the need for a power-sharing constitutional framework. Can Jeffrey tell the people, who he wants to vote for ANUG, what part did he play in advancing this formula when he held Cabinet status? Did he compose a paper? Who were the rejectionists of his paper inside the PPP leadership and why did they take such a stance?
Finally, what does Jeffrey know about what went on in Buxton between 2002 and 2006 and was the moral repugnancy of the Jagdeo’s regime so overwhelming that he felt the need to resign? If we are going to have a fourth reply from Jeffrey, I kindly ask that even though he will continue to describe my insanity and my meager intellectual ability, he answers the questions about his humongous baggage.
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