Y'all got to stop being naive about the PPP and its place in Guyana's political history.

For one thing, a native political force emerged with Cheddi Jagan's leadership to shape the nation's post-colonial future. Jagan's socio-economic plans were borne out of the colonial experience (lack of education, health care, women's voting rights, etc.), and given his plans and the Cold War (along with the US Monroe doctrine and the presence of Fidel Castro's Cuba) he was cornered.

The second thing to note is that Jagan's political infrastructure of "Democratic Centralism" was undemocratic and led to cliques and cabals. Nail him for this if you will, but understand the context above.

Y'all gotta stop responding faith-like when characterizations are made about the years of Jagdeo's governance. Who gives a crap about putting blacks in their place and protecting Indians, and all of that. Measure those years with the security side of things - The political proxies FF and the Phantom fights - with no above-board law enforcement help accepted or procured. Measure the progress by the economic infrastructure installed, the contracts given out and technology transfers. Measure those years by whether Guyana's economic infrastructure was transformed. Has Guyanese manufacturing joined the technological world? Has Guyana jumped on the technology services bandwagon? Are the natural resources exploited optimally - land-based gold extraction, oil exploration, hydro power, etc.

So let's put Cheddi's impact on Guyana's political and economic history in proper perspective. Balance the successes - secondary and tertiary education, health institutions, farmers' progress, etc. - with the failures - the 20-some odd years in the political wilderness with no palpable opposition and indeed critical support when Guyana descended into state capitalism; no democratic party infrastructure; Janet's place in Guyana's history..........

This is the great Jagan. A man who cared deeply about poor people.

Indeed that communist Cheddi was a disgrace to Guyana. He was the main reason that the Americans and British supported the lesser of the two evils, the pnc.