Is the PPP/C a one man show?

Apr 03, 2023 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Peeping Tom…

Kaieteur News – General Secretary (GS) of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic, Bharrat Jagdeo continues to belabor the point that the Guyana Human Rights Association is a one-man show. But in his most recent press conferences, held in his capacity as GS of the PPP/C, he alone has appeared at the head table.

It would not be remiss therefore for persons to form the perception that the PPP/C is also a one-man show and is dominated by Jagdeo. He did not even see it fit to include any other Executive Committee or Central Committee member at his most recent press conferences.

This would also have given credence to the fact that the views he expressed were not his own but represented those of his party’s executive. It would have also helped allay the suspicion that the PPP/C has become so dominated by Jagdeo that it is effectively a one-man show.

The perception is already embedded in the public psyche that Jagdeo is the power behind the throne within the PPP/C government. The least he could have done was to have some token presence of another PPP/C leader at his press conference, which would have given him greater moral authority to speak about the GHRA being a one-man show.

The PPP/C has become an undemocratic party. Cheddi Jagan always liked to boast about his party having internal democracy. It was known that he and his wife often had heated exchanges within the Executive Committee. Such heated exchanges are now confined to instances of rebuking and insulting persons who are opposed to policies of the government and who are forced to walk-out of meetings because of the insults and hostility that are leveled against them.

The PPP/C has been seized by the bourgeois class, so much so that it failed to hold its scheduled Congress in 2019. The party has no excuse for not doing so. The pandemic, which it is using as an excuse, did not start until 2020. This means that the PPP/C went into the 2020 elections without a mandate from its highest decision-making organ and without affording its delegates the opportunity to have a say in terms of the party’s slate for those elections.

The old guard of the party has been put out to pasture. Some of them have been neutralised by being given positions to stand guard over the party’s interest. But effectively they have no influence over the party or over government’s policies.

The forthcoming Congress of the party will determine the extent to which the party drifts into an authoritarian leadership or one-man dictatorship. At a previous Congress of the party, there was a deliberate attempt to manipulate the outcome of the discussions by party delegates. Persons from the leadership of the party were placed to guide the discussions in the groups. This served only to muzzle free expression and to control the narrative.

The delegates to the forthcoming Congress will have to guard against this happening again. But will they? Or will the majority of delegates fawn at and rubber stamp the existing leadership?

Not much fight can be expected from the old guard. They have been effectively marginalised within the party and do not even have the gall to publicly express concern over the fact that press conferences of the party are being hosted with one person at the head table and one person going on a lengthy rant.

The PPP/C cannot claim to be the party of Cheddi Jagan or even a working-class party once it is in this mode. In the past, the PPP/C had a commercial arm, known as GIMPEX. That has been abandoned. The party is now totally dependent on the bourgeois class for financing. This gives that class tremendous leverage over the affairs of the party.

Yet, Jagdeo has the temerity to call on his party’s faithful to come to the defence of the party by taking to social media to push the party’s achievements and narratives. Why did he not ask the bourgeois class which controls his party and which reap the bulk of the benefits of the government to do so?

The bourgeois class likes to stay behind the scenes and get others to do its bidding. But it’s time that someone is bold enough to stand up to the party’s leadership and condemn it for not holding a Congress in 2019 and for delaying the forthcoming Congress on specious grounds.

It is time for someone to question the present situation within the party. That person must be prepared to get the booth because as sure as night follows day, the PPP/C will not condone serious internal criticisms especially of the leadership.

But that is what it will take for things to change within the party. And that is what it will take for the party to disabuse the public perception that the PPP/C is a one-man show.

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