IN recent weeks we have seen an intensification

of a phenomenon which we first witnessed in 2011.

This phenomenon has seen

the newly minted Opposition PPP members,

especially since having taken up their seats in Parliament,

express a heightened level of obsession

with Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo.

They are led by their belligerent leader, Mr Bharrat Jagdeo.

This manic preoccupation with Nagamootoo

may seem awkward,

but there is a well-defined reason

for this pattern of compulsive fixation.

The PPP’s obsession with Nagamootoo

can be traced to a deep- seated hatred.

It goes back some time.

Nagamootoo was a leading target

for the PPP’s electoral campaigns

in both 2011 and 2015.

Political campaigns are exercises

in rigid management of resources.

Political parties are not known to waste time

and energies targeting persons

or issues that are inconsequential.

There was a well-researched and credible reason

for the PPP to have focused

as much time and attention on Nagamootoo in those campaigns.

The campaign attacks have now transferred

to targeting Nagamootoo as the duly elected Prime Minister.

But the issue extends to even before the 2011 campaign.

It was against Nagamootoo

that there was internal PPP scheming and manipulation

and allegations of much worse

by the highest office holders of the party

to sideline him (Nagamootoo) who was once heir apparent.

Following his spectacular departure from Freedom House

and his embrace of the AFC in 2011,

it was Nagamootoo who piloted

the historic No Confidence Motion against the PPP,

which triggered Donald Ramotar’s

unceremonious and unprecedented

prorogation of Parliament which ultimately resulted

in defeat for the PPP at the May 11 polls.

It is Nagamootoo whom Freedom House

sees as that tipping force

which caused the PPP Government to fall

and which has consigned the PPP to the Opposition benches.

The new Opposition Leader is former President

and reluctant private citizen, Bharrat Jagdeo.

Fate, and thinly veiled ambition

to return to the halls of power,

has dealt Mr Jagdeo a seemingly ignoble blow.

He must now occupy the seat in Parliament,

among the Opposition benches,

located directly across from Prime Minister Nagamootoo

on the Government side.

Every time he raises his head

it is Nagamootoo whom he sees in his line of sight,

sitting as the Leader of Government business in the House

and as the Prime Minister

and second in command of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana.

Mr Jagdeo,

once strangle-holder of the highest office in the land

is now relegated to Leader of the Opposition

and sitting outside the corridors

of official governmental power.

It appears as though these facts

are too much for the proud Mr Jagdeo to digest.

The wounds are fresh.

There are five years for

Mr Jagdeo to get accustomed

to the contours of his new seat

and field of view.

The signals of Nagamootoo’s presence

in Government galling the PPP in general

and Mr Jagdeo in particular are not few.

After Mr Jagdeo’s budget presentation,

which sounded not unlike his campaign platform ‘performances,’

he stormed out of the National Assembly,

his loyal troops filing out behind him.

Having schemed and manoeuvred unsuccessfully

for days to avoid speaking before Nagamootoo,

Mr Jagdeo would have known

that Prime Minister Nagamootoo

was slated to present after him and

clearly could not bear to “man up”

and face Nagamootoo.

Mr Jagdeo did what many have described as

an act of irresponsible cowardice and

let his people down

by vacating the highest decision- making body in the land

– an act for which he himself

and numerous of his colleagues

have previously viciously berated the previous Opposition.

There is an issue of hypocritical behaviour

which the PPP will find itself

confronted with on this score.

But alas, it was not Nagamootoo’s departure

from the PPP that has

Freedom House as repulsed as they are.

Had Nagamootoo left,

but, like Ralph Ramkarran,

opted to become politically non-committal,

the PPP might very well have

clung to power as they did in 2011.

That critical mass to get the coalition Opposition

over the line was provided by the AFC

in support of APNU’s mass appeal as a united coalition front.

At the helm of the AFC in the six- party coalition

was the irrepressible Nagamootoo

as the Prime Ministerial candidate

alongside Presidential Candidate Brigadier (rt’d) David Granger.

There would have been

post-election analysis done at Freedom House,

and perhaps at places within the vicinity

of the Plaisance Community Centre Ground.

It appears as though the analysis has recommended

that the response be to seek

to diminish Nagamootoo’s Prime Ministership

to the level of their own

23-year pliant Prime Minister, Mr Samuel Hinds.

And hence the obsession,

the heckling,

the barrage of media comments and

the revulsion towards Prime Minister Nagamootoo.

What appears certain is that

this is the first phase of the PPP attack plan.

There is certain to be more to come.

Prime Minister Nagamootoo will have to prepare

to face more as long as he remains resolute

in occupying his seat on the Government side of the house.

There will be no relenting

as long as his face is what comes into focus

at the head of the table

when those on the other side

lift their heads from a downward gaze.