Night falls on Stalingrad: The PPP at 65

What is facing the PPP on its 65th birthday is the worst trouble any human being can find him/herself in – the jeopardy of freedom. This explains why the celebrations are so muted. The energy, animation, optimism are not there. When a party in power is facing its final moments, it does not think of celebrations, it is only possessed of fear, the fear of what is to come when mighty people drop down to earth and become mere mortals.
At 65, there isn’t a Papa Jagan or Mama Jagan. The Jagans left two biological children, and both think the PPP is a caricature of what their parents created. At 65, the PPP has lost every ounce of moral redemption, every ounce of political decency and every fibre of humanity. At 65, the PPP has not one woman or man that could command any significant level of respect from any level of the Guyanese society.
From Minister Reepu Daman Persaud’s secretary who committed suicide to Jagdeo’s expulsion of his wife from the marital home to Jagdeo’s business friends buying up Guyana to President Ramotar’s unbecoming act of back-balling in public at an army party to the miserable doings of Kellawan Lall to the disgraceful behaviour of Priya Manickchand at the US Ambassador’s home to Nandlall’s encouragement of his relative to sex up a young journalist, this is what the PPP has become as the party reached its 65th birthday.
All the signs point to one and only one cul-de-sac – the fall from grace.  How will the discarded mandarins face a post-PPP Guyana? If history is any guide, it is not hard to imagine. There will be public humiliation. The Robeson Benns, Charles Ramsons, Manickchands, Westfords, Teixeiras and their fellow arrogant acolytes cannot display their pomposity and invincibility any longer. I haven’t left out any names deliberately; it is just that people know who these disgraced kings and queens are.
They will avoid the public realm. And each time we pass them in the supermarket we should speak to ourselves, but loud enough so they can hear and the words should come from Shakespeare; “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them.” (Julius Caesar – act 3, scene 2)
But who says they will go to the supermarkets, stores, restaurants? They will avoid the public realm because the loss of invincibility will be too painful to let others stare at them. The Jagdeos, Ramotars, Gopauls, Nandlalls, and their powerful allies will no doubt have their day in front of the investigators, and a billion words will run into trillions of pages as to what Guyana went through from 1999 to 2015.
Old questions will mingle with new ones. Old curiosities will survive alongside newer ones. Old mysteries will resurface to take their places alongside the new ones that we want to see explained. Who murdered Ronald Waddell? What is the truth behind the killing of Sash Sawh? Who financed the operations of Roger Khan? How much money was spent on Cricket World Cup 2007 and were the funds accounted for? How much was spent on Carifesta and were there financial irregularities?
How can a newcomer to the halls of power so quickly build a mansion with swimming pool on the West Coast of Demerara? How come a mediocre lawyer inhabiting a rat-infested office can so quickly build a house and sell it for a million American dollars soon after joining the corridors of power? How much of the fifty billion Guyanese dollars on wasted projects went into private, foreign bank accounts?
What the Guyanese people are seeing today is the crumbling of a Guyanese empire, born in the communist era when the anti-colonial struggle made Stalinists look good (see Mohan Ragbeer, “The Indelible Red Stain: Destruction of a Tropical Paradise” for Cheddi Jagan’s praise of Josef Stalin, the Russian despot). Stalin is long gone, communism is long gone, Cheddi Jagan is long gone, and now, the PPP is set to go.
One can well imagine, Clement Rohee rubbishing this article with deafening decibels of PPP triumphalism as he prepares for his next press conference where bad grammar meets semantic nonsense covered in Mephistophelean evil – the PPP will win the forthcoming elections with a reclaimed majority. But even a school girl who has read just one book on politics would tell you – dictators cannot recognize reality even if it crashes onto their doorstep like an aircraft carrier. As we come closer to the 2015 election, the cemetery of Stalin awaits another burial.