Jagdeo’s expenditure: Uncle Donald in trouble

It must be definite after what happened last week that President Ramotar has made up his mind that there will be no General Elections before they are legally due in 2016. All the young PPP Turks who feel that they can appeal to the Indian people because of their age, including the West Coast Demerara swimming pool man, the MBA man, the cricket bully, the finance man who think he is a wizard and the fisherwoman will have to wait until 2016.
With each passing day, a new nightmare is born, making re-election for Uncle Donald’s party almost impossible. Within the space of a week a double whammy hit De Donald real hard. Priya, the Satyra gyaal “open she mouth” and caused panic among Indians who fear that any American backlash in Guyana can harm their chances of going to the US. And Indians are just rushing out of Guyana like an overflowing river.
Then came the announcement that within the space of two years, the Government spent $83 million on Jagdeo including his monthly pension. His medical bills over that two-year period are not included. When we get the real amount and you translate it into American currency, Mr. Jagdeo may be earning annually more than any former Prime Minister or President in the any Third World country.
You can add to these two nightmares the rebellion by Essequibo rice farmers for their hard earned money from the government. In a snap poll can Uncle Donald successfully justify these horrendous atrocities? He cannot. It must be the most backward population a country can ever have to vote for a government that cannot pay rice farmers monies owed to them, but dishes out more that $83 million in two years ( and this excludes the millions in his medical bills?) to Mr. Jagdeo.
I remind readers that in several instances I pointed out that the nature of the PPP is the biggest electoral enemy of the PPP. The PPP cannot win back a majority because it continues to produce the venalities that caused them to lose the 2011 elections in the first place.
The point that I continue to belabour in these columns is that the PPP leaders, young and old have become prisoners of irrationality, hubris and hauteur.
Let’s offer some examples and let us start with Priya Manickchand. She has some strong backers in the house of gerontocracy to become the next leader of the PPP. Nationally, she could have garnered enough sympathy. The world believes women should be given their due with respect to leadership in general. Manickchand didn’t do her credibility any good by her odious behaviour at the US Ambassador’s house. It was a stupid act but she was helpless to control herself.
This is the way ruling parties, saturated with dictatorship blemishes, behave. What is going to happen is that her rivals will use her sordid misadventure into the diplomatic terrain to vilify her. And it has started. One of her competitors was at the diplomatic function and refused to support her action when asked by the media for a comment. In fact, he posed with the Ambassador for a photo shot. The house of gerontocracy knew that Manickchand was way out of line and they came to her rescue by saying her speech was written for her and approved by the Cabinet. It was not. Manickchand may have given her head on a platter to her adversaries in the PPP and there is no shortage of Brutuses in the PPP.
Next is the perennial silly boy – Clement Rohee. The best thing for a PPP leader wanting a return of a parliamentary majority to do is keep away from Bharrat Jagdeo. Mr. Jagdeo’s utterly sickening behaviour as president in any other country would have generated a landslide victory for the opposition. He caused the PPP to lose its majority. Rohee, the man who said the goat didn’t bite him but behaves as if the goat did bite him, heaped praise on Mr. Jagdeo at a recent press conference and took the idiotic route of saying, in reference to Mr. Jagdeo’s financial standing, that he saved his money during his working years. Not only do these things make people laugh but they make for good campaigning issues against the PPP in an election battle. But do you think Mr. Rohee will stop?
No! He cannot help himself. So he told the media last week that he does not know that Mr. Jagdeo’s common law, Varshnie Singh, made accusations of domestic abuse against him. Such idiocy can never win the PPP admiration or votes.