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Referendum on renegotiation – Jagdeo isn’t stupid

Nov 08, 2024 Editorial, News

…Editorial

 Kaieteur News- The question about a referendum on renegotiation was put to Vice President Jagdeo by another media house: “for instance in the Cayman Islands, they are putting to referendum alongside their upcoming elections whether they should be constructing piers to accommodate larger cruise ships. So I am just giving you that as a slight background so to speak, in light of the debate about the need to renegotiate the Exxon contract would your government or party be inclined to put that to a referendum as well?”  Anyone who expected something positive from Jagdeo had to be disappointed with his inevitable answer.  A referendum on renegotiation of the ExxonMobil oil contract alongside upcoming general election is out of the question, not going to happen.  A referendum would have to be over the vice president’s dead body.  Whatever Bharrat Jagdeo may be, he is not so stupid as to commit political suicide.

We believe that the great majority of Guyanese want the current ExxonMobil deal scrapped.  Guyanese want that odious contract renegotiated, so that the country can get more, which means that they could do better.  But even to mention the word renegotiation in the presence of ExxonMobil’s local generals, such as Alistair Routledge, could lead to political downfall.  Jagdeo knows this, so he is not going to go anywhere near anything that confirms what Guyanese want.  The odds are heavy that a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question placed on a referendum ballot could put the PPPC Government, and Jagdeo by extension, in a difficult place.  Their own instincts emphasize that a referendum on renegotiation of the oil contract poses considerable danger.  A cleanly run referendum is almost sure to confirm that Guyanese want renegotiation, and they want it now.  They want materially different contract terms from what exists today.

Jagdeo, however, is too slick a political creature to risk a referendum.  Because if the people vote in favour of renegotiation, he has no place left to run, no space to hide.  He and others in the PPP/C, both when in opposition and now in government, had committed ‘to review and renegotiate’, only for them to swallow their promise.  Jagdeo knows that to persist with talk about ‘review and renegotiate’ would lead to steely resistance from ExxonMobil’s Routledge.  Even worse yet, Jagdeo fears that the tabling of any such renegotiation leadership in ExxonMobil’s face would result in the company’s leaders reviewing his own fitness as a continued partner alongside them.  ExxonMobil’s CEO, Darren Woods, and the company’s Guyana President, Alistair Routledge, would be sure to view renegotiation coming from him as walking back on what was settled long ago.  To put it differently, should Jagdeo summon the courage to push for renegotiation, he would be a betrayer in the company’s eyes.  Nobody knows what was bargained for, but everybody knows that renegotiation can never be allowed to happen in a PPP/C Government-ExxonMobil partnership.

Why, therefore, put matters to a test with a referendum on renegotiation?  A tidal wave of affirmative responses to renegotiation would back Jagdeo and the PPP/C Government into a corner from which there is no escape.  Therefore, in Jagdeo’s hands, a referendum is strangled out of existence before it can even take its first breath.  In other words, it is better to be safe than sorry.  It is revealing how he operates, what is now true to form.  He labels the survey done by reputable local accounting firm, Ram and McRae, “suspect.”  And to send out the call to his loyal audience, he used “suspect” twice to dismiss the survey.  What both the PPP/C Government and the vice president fail to recognise is that they have underestimated the intelligence of Guyanese, including their own supporters.

Guyanese are fed up with ExxonMobil commanding their oil inheritance and even misleading them with deceptive billboards.  The government’s own supporters are disgusted that Jagdeo has turned out to be such a slippery operator, when the best management of Guyana’s oil wealth is urgently needed.  Jagdeo is no fool, so he should know that Guyanese are no longer fooled by his press brawls, his dodges.  A clean referendum would put all doubts, all differences, on renegotiation to rest.  Jagdeo knows this, he shouldn’t fear one.

 (Referendum on renegotiation – Jagdeo isn’t stupid)

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