Khemraj Ramjattan versus Sam Hinds: The narrative of racism

Nov 25, 2019 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

---

When President Janet Jagan resigned from the presidency in 1999, her Prime Minister was Sam Hinds. The PPP bypassed Hinds and gave the presidency to Bharrat Jagdeo.
From August 1999, the narrative was born that the PPP did not want an African Guyanese to become president and so insulted Hinds. From 1999 to this day, many African organizations and African rights individual have written profusely on this subject, accusing the PPP of racist attitudes.
Let us digress briefly. In several columns I have offered the theory of PPP’s electoral resurgence since 2015. The thesis is simple. People in 2015 voted for the disappearance of forms of political behavior and political styles that not only disgusted them but they were burdened with.
Each day, before 2015, Minister This and Minister That were exposed as corrupt. State properties were used as if they belong to the leaders. Racial preferences scared citizens because they felt it was time we extirpated that birthmark.
After 2015 they didn’t see the disappearance of things they deplored in the hegemony of the PPP. The people who voted against the PPP don’t read the Chronicle because they see the paper being treated as the same rag by a new government.
What happened then were two things. One is that they were insanely disappointed after 2015. Secondly, they will take that insanity to the ballot box. Let’s return contextually to the Ramjattan-Hinds.
Those who chastised the PPP for racial practice against Sam Hinds will now be tested against the background of the covenant signed by the PNC and AFC in which the latter has agreed not to accede to the presidential throne in the event of Mr. Granger retiring before 2025. PPP supporters will ask if that covenant is not cast in racial cement.
An African is president. To ethnically balance the slate, an Indian is his running mate. The African president vacates power but the Indian Prime Minister is asked not to claim the presidency which constitutionally he has a right to fill.
The question is; are we seeing the Sam Hinds playbook being performed here? If it was clouded in racial intention when Hinds was overlooked for Jagdeo in 1999 why isn’t the same theme being played in the Ramjattan situation? Now here is the great contradiction in the history of this country that perhaps has no parallel elsewhere in politics.
I counted four times President Granger elaborated on the authority the constitution gives him and that he will be guided by the constitution in the negotiations between APNU and AFC for a reconstructed Cummingsburg Accord. I counted three times he said that the constitution allows him to select a prime minister of his choice and he will adhere to the constitution.
But Granger as leader of the PNC has accepted an assurance whether verbal or written (I was told that it was written) from Ramjattan that he, Ramjattan will forego the presidency if the APNU+AFC wins the 2020 poll and Granger steps down. Here is where Guyana’s journalism comes in. It is a humongous contradiction in the politics of Granger. Poor journalism will allow him to get away without an explanation.
The constitution stipulates that the prime Minister is next in line. Only the Prime Minister can say he doesn’t want to succeed the president if and when the president retires. Why then Granger wants a legal or moral guarantee from Ramjattan? Why not let the constitution kick in should the event occur of a retiring president?
Granger in his consistent emphasis on the supremacy of the constitution must know that the legal paper Ramjattan handed him does not supersede the constitution. If APNU-AFC wins and Granger retires, the constitution spells out the office-holder that should succeed him. It is the Prime Minister.
Why then try to get around the constitution if on four occasions, Granger emphasized the need to adhere to constitutional stipulations?
So where are the accusers that pointed to racial motives behind the demotion of Hinds in 1999? Is there an ethnic factor at work in the PNC’s acceptance of a document from Ramjattan that he will not claim the presidency in the event that it becomes vacant?
There is a much more pressing curiosity. There has been no definitive statement from the PNC that it requested the assurance from Ramjattan. But the speculation out there was extensive that the PNC would only renegotiate the Cummingsburg Accord if Ramjattan was excluded from the presidency and would only be accepted if he guarantees the PNC that he will not accept the constitutional succession. So why the PNC wants Ramjattan to do a Sam Hinds?
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

---

---