President Ramotar says things that do not make sense
I originally put the title of this article as “Horses replace elephants in the circus.” Then my experience as a journalist spoke to me. An article enjoys a wider circulation based on the caption.
If you headline your column, “Incident at a street fair,” readers may feel that the writer is describing some criminal or sociological deviancy and may not be interested.
But if that column is captioned, “Ministers in nasty brawl at street fair,” it is bound to attract wider curiosity. I removed the horses and elephants headline because people may not know it is about a very shocking and unimaginable mistake by President Ramotar.
This country is definitely jinxed. When you think you have seen the worst, you run into the bizarre. Then the bizarre become the horrible then the horrible become the unspeakable. Then the unspeakable becomes the unimaginable. We thought that Mr. Jagdeo made no sense many times when he spoke. And we understood the shortcomings of Mr. Jagdeo. He was a virtual non-entity in politics and national life then miraculously became president of a leading West Indian nation.
Given his tiny intellectual capacity and literal nondescript status in Guyana, it was expected that he would make slip-ups that would be really unspeakable. I once read where Mr. Jagdeo said that it is better to have open voting in an organization than secret ballot, because open show of hands is more transparent. Nothing can be more asinine.
If I give you a million dollars to vote for me then by show of hands, you have to vote for me. With secret ballot, I could take your money yet embrace the truth and history by voting for the more honest candidate. You would have lost and would never know who stuck to their conscience and voted for morality over bribery.
I will always remember how secret voting on the UG Council backfired on the PPP and it led to then Minister of Education, Henry Jeffrey, and President Jagdeo flying into a rage. The PPP’s point man at UG, Dr. James Rose, lost contract-renewal by one vote. Given the polarized nature of the Council, Rose should have won because at the meeting there were six PPP members versus five who were against Rose.
After secret ballot, Rose lost the vote by one. Instead of it being six for Rose and five against, it was the other way, meaning a PPP member voted against Rose. The confusion was immense. Every PPP Council member was overtaken with anger – someone jumped ship. They all wanted to know who it was, but secret ballot protected the person who voted with his conscience. Dr. Mark Kirton replaced Rose as Vice Chancellor. He lasted literally one day because Mr. Jagdeo ordered Rose’s reinstatement. So much for the silly nature of Mr. Jagdeo.
But how different is Ramotar? He is not. But he should be. Jagdeo came to the presidency in his thirties without any experience whatsoever. Ramotar assumed office in his sixties after more than thirty years of political experience in and out of Guyana. Now if you think Mr. Jagdeo’s secret ballot remark was shockingly nonsensical, read on about what President Ramotar said.
Speaking at his press conference two Saturdays ago on his insistence not to bow to opposition pressure and concede to the conditions the opposition has set for signing the anti- money laundering Bill, Mr. Ramotar said that he will not recognize and concede to the things the opposition wants from his government because such politics is called horse-trading. He said that such horse-trading will destroy democracy and the poor in Guyana.
He explained that horse-trading is lobbying and only people with money can lobby and the poor will not be left out. This is the most nonsensical, shocking and silly thing to have come out of the mouth of any of the presidents we have had in Guyana. Politics is about trade-offs; concessions; compromise; retreats; recognition of one’s weakness; exchanges that are in the best interest of a nation; nationalist sacrifices etc.
Mr. Ramotar is from a party that has the adoption of Marxism-Leninism in its constitution. One of Lenin’s most famous quotes used by all Marxists throughout the world wherever they are goes like this; “you must take one step backward so you can make two steps forward.” This was Cheddi Jagan’s favourite quote and he used it literally thousands of times.
Of course the sickening thing about Mr. Ramotar’s foolish conceptualization of politics is that he is a minority president. This means that concession and compromise should be the essential characteristics in the exercise of power. What a mess Guyana is in.
