I have repeatedly said that Ralph Ramkarran and Henry Jeffrey owe it to the Guyanese people to add to the country’s historical understanding of the role the PPP played in and out of office. The former has forty years of experience with both the PPP in opposition and the PPP in government. Henry Jeffrey has less experience both inside the oppositional corridors of the PPP and as a PPP Cabinet Minister but he has chalked up sixteen years as a Minister, a status Ramkarran never achieved.
For a man who has been writing a weekly column for years now, Jeffrey stays away from any analysis, however ephemeral and tiny, about the key players, major events, wrong roads, right pathways, shocking moments and the negatives and positives of his sixteen years with the PPP Cabinet. In any country, when a former Minister begins to criticize the government that he served for sixteen years, the nation would expect some controlled opinions and factual adumbrations from him/her about those days in power.
There is only one critical statement on the nature of the PPP that Jeffrey has given since he left the PPP Government. In an interview with Denis Chabrol, he said during his time as a Minister that there wasn’t a separate, organization entity named the Civic Component. Jeffrey felt that Jagan would not have approved of such a formation and it was best to leave the issue alone. This is another historical gold nugget because it adds to the picture of who Cheddi Jagan really was. When it comes to Ramkarran, he is the completely opposite of Jeffrey. Whereas Jeffrey has given us one historical piece of diamond, Ramkarran has given us several. It would be a shame if Ramkarran does not publish his memoirs
Ramkarran continues to contribute to our comprehension of the complexities and Machiavellianism that comprise the physiology of the PPP. He informed us that after Cheddi Jagan died, Luncheon put forward himself as the presidential candidate for the 1997 elections and Mrs. Jagan used the competitive disagreement in the PPP to claim the slot for herself. There are several other exposures in his ongoing commentaries that the historians would consider important in the recording of the main currents in the modern, political landscape of Guyana. His latest revelations come within that pattern
Ramkarran describes for us a conspiracy of Mr. Jagdeo during the 2011 election year that undoubtedly all political observers knew – Mr. Jagdeo circumvented democratic voting and handpicked Ramotar as the presidential candidate. But Ramkarran didn’t leave it at that. He went on to elaborate on the Jagdeoite conspiracy that has lasting consequences for Black people in this country. Ramkarran explained how he went to Berbice and canvassed high level PPP leaders for their support for his candidacy (Ramkarran, that is). The Berbecian hierarchy told him that they were unhappy with the Ramotar choice but they were helpless to act in the face of the Jagdeo Juggernaut
What Ramkarran failed to mention and he should have done so because there are lessons for African Guyanese, is why Jagdeo chose Ramotar, knowing that Ramotar was not the right candidate. It has to do with race. Jagdeo would have chosen any East Indian he wanted because he knew Indians had no alternative – it is an Indian from the PPP facing an African from the PNC. It didn’t matter if it was Samotar, Manotar or Abbatoir. Once it was an Indian as the PPP candidate Indian opposing an African from the PNC, Indians had no choice. This is where the lessons for Black people lie. African Guyanese should avoid the pitfalls that allowed the PPP to reduce Indians to slavery among whom were rich Indians, educated Indians and decent Indians.
African Guyanese may well face their Jagdeo moment when PNC (not APNU- the WPA would never play that game) when African leaders will choose their own candidate rather than the best choice (as when Jagdeo selected Ramotar ahead of the more eligible Ramkarran) and when Black constituencies protest, they will be told that the alternative is an Indian from the PPP. I don’t have the answer as to how Black people could collectively stop this if it happens in the PNC. But the PPP played that game and it gave them 23 years of power but those years did little for progress in Berbice. One hopes it never comes to this in the PNC in 2020 if Granger isn’t running again. In the end, the PNC must select the candidate that has the better qualities and greater chance of wining. The 2020 poll should be about issues not ethnicities.
