PRIME Minister Moses Nagamootoo said though Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo will manipulate the system to select a PPP presidential candidate of his choice, it will not be a walk in the park for the former President.
Writing in this week’s My Turn column, the prime minister, a former PPP executive, said a stiff challenge awaits any of Jagdeo’s underhand dealings.
“This time around, I was assured, it would not be a walk-over. Bossman (Jagdeo) would be met with a stiff “F” campaign – “Fight For Frank” (Dr. Frank Anthony),” Mr Nagamootoo said.
He noted that ahead of this campaign, anticipatory moves are afoot to dislodge the “Jaganite” Komal Chand from the leadership of GAWU (sugar workers) which, together with RPA (rice farmers), has an historical, built-in appeal at the ethnic and traditional support base of the party.
According to the prime minister, the only guarantee of a “fair” process would be a congress at which delegates vote openly for the presidential candidate and, preceding that, all contenders are allowed equal opportunities to address regional conferences.
But this, he said, is unlikely to happen.
Unless there is a single candidate, he said the party congress is the supreme authority, not the Executive (ExCo) or Central Committee (CC), to decide who runs for the presidency.
In 1990, though Dr. Cheddi Jagan was unopposed, congress had to decide on accepting a non-party person, Samuel Hinds, as the prime ministerial candidate, and as a potential successor in the event that the President was unable to perform the functions of presidential office. That congress also allocated a fixed percentage of parliamentary seats to the “Civic”.
Mr Nagamootoo noted that for the 1997 elections, when Janet Jagan had appeared hesitant, there was almost a contest when he nominated Dr. Roger Luncheon as presidential candidate and Ralph Ramkarran for the prime ministerial slot. Consideration of his primary nominee by the Central Committee was quickly aborted with one member saying Dr Luncheon would be a hard sell to sugar workers. Dr. Luncheon, he said silently understood the message, stepped aside, and nominated Mrs Jagan. She became the single candidate.
“What she dramatically did after her endorsement by the Central Committee was to name a successor, which only the ‘matriarch’ could be allowed to do without recourse to either the Constitution of Guyana or the precedent of the 1990 Congress. However in 1998, much to her dislike, the PPP congress used the election of a new Central Committee as a referendum on the successor issue, which was not taken to the membership for ratification.
The official results showed that I received the second highest number of votes (unofficially the highest), only after then President Janet Jagan. Those results showed that congress wanted a say on the successor issue, and the members had spoken. It was an overwhelming rejection of her unilateral choice of Bharrat Jagdeo to replace her!” Mr Nagamootoo said.
BACKLASH
This, he said, caused a backlash a week later. At the first meeting of the Central Committee, Mr Nagamootoo said he was not re-elected to the 15-member Central Committee — the first time in 20 years and was co-opted to this body after he was stopped from walking out and possibly resigning from the PPP.
The emasculation of congress by the dominant, Moscow-trained, Stalinist gang was to be repeated 10 years later, in 2008, he said.
“While the gang was still obsessed with my ‘ambition’, they went to sleep when Dr. Frank Anthony, like a fresh lamb, entered the power-house. Then the authentic youth leader, Dr. Frank Anthony, scored the third highest number of popular votes. I came in fifth. Yet, when the Central Committee met, it ruthlessly devoured him. Both Frank and I, at the top five of popular support, were both excluded from the Executive Committee!
“Domination of the Executive Committee (inner Cabinet) was key to the control of the political processes and preservation [of] the axis of power by what Dr. Joey Jagan would identify as “the Gang of Eight”. In the selection of a presidential candidate, the ExCo arrogated to itself the role of “recommending” a slate of candidates, which I stoutly rejected for the 2011 elections,” the prime minister recalled.
For those elections, for the first time, there were multiple candidates – Ralph Ramkarran, Clement Rohee, Gail Teixeira, Donald Ramotar and Moses Nagamootoo. Nagamootoo had demanded an open, democratic and transparent process and suggested the preliminary selection of the suitable candidate at 10 regional conferences, and final approval at a Special Congress.
During the critical stages of the debate on what form the selection should take, President Jagdeo moved the Central Committee meeting to State House, the president’s official residence.
And according to Nagamootoo, some of Jagdeo’s ministers insisted that the Executive Committee should make a recommendation of a suitable candidate, and for the Central Committee to make the final decision.
The “Gang of Eight”, he said, was pressured to provide evidence to show that congress had delegated its authority to the Central Committee but what followed was a clumsy comedy.
He said the recording secretary later said that such an authority existed, but the Minutes Book had been destroyed when the Ministry of Health Building was gutted by fire.
“So, I withdrew myself from that rigged process and, after 50 years of devotion to my Leader and sacrifices for my party, I resigned from the PPP. I reinvested my trust in my people. The rest is now history.
“The Gang of Eight has become bold and entrenched. With the departure after me, one of the best known revolutionary intellectual Ralph Ramkarran, and the subsequent death of the uncompromising, foremost “Jaganite”, Navin Chanderpaul, the leadership was stacked with a new coterie of flatterers and hero worshippers.
“Taking the selection process for a party presidential candidate to the PPP Central Committee is, in my opinion and from experience, like putting a cat to watch milk!” he concluded.
