Olympian fight inside the Guyana Olympic Association

Jun 16, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – Unfortunately the media has not given coverage to a battle of Olympian proportion in the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) that has formidable implications for freedom and democracy in Guyana. Mr. K.A. Juman-Yassin who has been the president of the GOA for 25 years has announced his intention to seek re-election.
Some GOA executives are opposed to this for the wrong reason – age. They say Mr. Juman-Yassin is 75 and the International Olympic Association stipulated age of retirement for the presidency is 70. If that is so, that is a different matter to the argument that age should be a consideration in holding office. It should not.
Yesu Persaud held the chairmanship of DDL way into his eighties. He was in his nineties and was still chairman of Demerara Bank. Joseph Pollydore was General-Secretary for the Trade Union Congress while in his nineties.
Clifford Reis heads Banks DIH and is in his eighties. Major General Joe Singh is chairman of the National Resources Fund and is older than Mr. Juman-Yassin. Mr. Mike McCormack, head of the Guyana Human Rights Association is over 75. The head of the TUC is over 75. President Joe Biden is touching 80.
Age has nothing to do with talent and performance. What is priceless in the Guyana context is term limit. Term limit is extremely crucial and extremely important in Guyana because Guyana has one of the youngest populations in the world.
I have stressed term limits on these pages several times over the past years and as recent as March 11, 2022 in which I referred to a stupid thing the Berbice Cricket Association has done. It rejected a proposal for its head to serve three terms only, extending it to five.
The quarrel over Mr. Juman-Yassin within his own association needs broad debate because the battle has consequences for democracy in Guyana. If there were term limits in the GOA, the quarrel about age would never have arisen. Mr. Juman-Yassin and others would have their two terms.
One of the problems in life is how to control power. It has been with civilisation since civilisation began. Throughout the thousands of years that humans have existed there have been countless treatises on how to prevent power from being abused by its possessor.
One of the modern ways is through term limits. Fidel Castro became a despicable figure in the world because 49 years, five months in power imprinted in his mind the belief that he was Cuba and Cuba was him. For all his talk about liberating his people after he came to power in 1959, he imprisoned them and that was because he was their jailer who couldn’t be removed.
While Castro was derogating his fellow Latin leaders who had to demit office after two terms or 10 years, he almost reached 50 in power. If there were term limits in Cuba, it would not have been in the state it is in today. Vladimir Putin removed the two term restriction in Russia. He is going to rule that country until he dies.
Humans cannot control power, and society has to control it for them. Term limit is one of the solutions. But the argument for term limits are potent and convincing when it comes to Guyana. I quote from my column of March 11, 2022: “If Sunil and Masood are both at 40 and they both contest the leader position of their organisation and Sunil wins and spends the next 35 years at the helm, Masood gets his chance when he becomes 75. When Sunil retires and Masood gets his 35 years, he will be 110 years when he retires.”
The GOA has announced that it has completed a new constitution. I don’t know what is inside of it but one desperately hopes that term limits are inside. All over this country, you see how the absence of term limits has created little gods. In the trade union sphere, lack of term limits has created virtual dictators who behave as if they own these unions.
There are two men in the trade union community in Guyana who have been at the helm of their respective organisations for more than 30 years respectively. Two others have chalked up more than 20 years. This is in a country where 75 percent of the population is under 45.
Reflect on the consequences of this. It means that those young trade unionists will grow older and will only get their chance when they are in advanced age. That is a moral outrage. Vincent Alexander once proposed term limits for party leaders. Mr. Aubrey Norton will be 69 when the next general election is due. Age 69 is still young comparatively speaking. But what about term limits?
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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