The challenge the PPP faces in the May 11 election

From an article by Ralph Ramkarran. Read the full article here

Ralph Ramkarran

Ralph Ramkarran is the son of one of the founders of the PPP--" Boysie"Ramkarran who was Dr. Cheddi Jagan's long time deputy leader.
I have put in italics what I regard as key ideas from this article.
Ramkarran's articles are on his website-http://conversationtree.gy/

It must have been hard for him to resign from the party that he and his father built. He has close insights into the way the party operates and the manner in which the Jagdeo faction destroyed the core values of the PPP.
Ralph was the speaker of Guyana's [ar;iament from 1992 to 2011.

Guyana's Parliament

"No one can predict the outcome of the elections with any accuracy. Both parties are well placed and the margin of victory will be small. The PPP would obviously seek to find creative ways to get its campaign against what it would describe as ‘the PNC’s possible return to power with the AFC’s help’ to take
hold so as to encourage PPP supporters who stayed away from the polls in 2011 or who migrated to the AFC in anger to return. The PPP will want to inculcate the feeling in their current and past supporters that however much they may be angry with the party, it would be more important to prevent a ‘return’ to office of the ‘PNC’ even if it is in alliance with the AFC. The PPP sees this strategy as offering the best potential for recovery. Unless such a campaign is conducted with some sophistication, it will be seen as an appeal to race and be counter-productive. But it is the PNCR that has long chosen to be silent about those issues of its past that most concern PPP supporters and the opposition alliance would understand that it must live with that decision.

Unless the PPP can find a way to deliver its message to the youth who form a substantial portion of the electorate, it would have difficulty in regaining a majority. Rural youth, potential supporters of the PPP, are not enthused and city youth, many from traditional PPP families, are swayed by the AFC. The message against the ‘PNC’ is unlikely to have substantial resonance with youth because they have no experience of the PNCR in office...

The message that the opposition has obstructed progress is not likely to resonate either, because the PPP has put forward no credible reason why it did not invite a coalition government to involve the opposition in governance...

But the PPP has given no indication so far that it has learnt the lesson of its loss in 2011. Believing that it was impossible to lose elections again, it allowed its organizational capacity to degenerate. Concluding that it is only its weak organizational output in 2011 that caused its loss, it has worked hard to restore its capacity. But even if it has now improved, organizational capacity alone will not cause former supporters who do not want to vote to change their minds. Organizational capacity will not influence a voter to change his or her support from AFC to PPP.

 The question the PPP has to ask is: Have we addressed the causes for the dissatisfaction?"

Alliances and Coalitions in Guyana--Moses Nagamootoo

Dear Editor,

It is with some reluctance that I have decided to engage Mr. Hydar Ally after reading his letter captioned `The AFC has taken a big political gamble’ which appeared in the SN of February 27th.

New leadership-A united Guyana

Mr. Ally said that political analysts were of the view that the alliance with APNU could very well be the end of the AFC.

Well, Sir, for a political scientist you have taken too much liberty to pronounce the death sentence based on self-serving views of “political pundits”, all of whom I presume are “Chatrees”. I trust that you could find equally authoritative pronouncements by Dr. Cheddi (Joey) Jagan and Mr. Ralph Ramkarran, both of whom were PPP/C candidates in 2011, but who believe sincerely that a national coalition is the way to go.

May I remind you that you were a part of the PPP’s leadership when it decided to form a Coalition Government with the PNC during 1975-1977 (National Patriotic Front/Government) and again, in 1985.

Did Mr. Ally see a PPP/PNC merger, as Dr. Jagan wanted, as “political suicide”? What was it, Mr. Ally, “political opportunism”?

Cheddi, Moses and Clement in revolutionary days

Cheddi Jagan never gave up on his quest for political alliances and inclusive governance. If it was good whilst he was alive, it cannot be bad now.

The truth of the matter is that Freedom House is both baffled by and jealous over the fact that such an alliance could be possible, and that the momentum in support of it objectively says that this is what Guyana was waiting for. PPP, sadly, missed the opportunity to forge unity even when common sense and political necessity had required it, after the 2011 election.

Mr. Ally knows only too well my own unyielding efforts in the PPP leadership to define and include in the party’s Political Programme the need for a State of National Democracy, which is a multi-party, multi-ethnic and multi-class state, to symbolize genuine people’s power. But the post-Jagan, pseudo-leaders never implemented this policy. It issued a diluted version that there would be a PPP-PNC coalition only after trust has been established between the parties.

The 1953 PPP cabinet

Our unsavory, contemporary history shows how Jagan and Burnham became political opponents since 1955, when the “split” took place, which created PPP and PNC. It also created what unfortunately have become Indo and Afro Guyanese political tribes. Yet, in 1964 when Cheddi Jagan was Premier, he offered Burnham 50% of his Cabinet. There were talks about rotating the premiership.

By 1985 Cheddi Jagan was ready to work with Forbes Burnham as President, whilst he was to be Prime Minister. Had that PNC-PPP Coalition been realized, Dr. Jagan would have become President of Guyana at the death of Burnham in 1985. Jagan would have been President of a United Government, seven years earlier than he was, and perhaps the PPP would have been spared the Jagdeoite curse that descended upon it.

Cheddi Jagan and Martin Carter in Prison

Mr. Ally says: “The Alliance for Change has taken a big political gamble…” Yes, there is nothing certain about political alliances, as the PPP’s own experiences have shown. During 1989-1990, the PPP sought merger in the Patriotic Coalition for Democracy (PCD) with WPA, PDM, DLM and a variety of political fringe groups. I was part of the PPP negotiating team with instructions to offer the motley grouping the Prime Minister portfolio, 50% of the cabinet and 50% of the electoral slate. The grouping rejected the offer, and demanded the presidency. The PCD talks collapsed.

However, the AFC was able to negotiate an honourable agreement with APNU in which it secured the Prime Minister portfolio, two Vice Presidents, and strategic ministries including Agriculture, Home Affairs and Public Works as well as the guarantee of a minimum of 12 seats in the National Assembly – win, lose or draw. On the basis of proportionality, the AFC secures a 40:60 formula for power sharing with APNU, which comprises five political parties.

Moses in the AFC

The corrupt, minority PPP regime has placed our country at grave risk, and the historic initiative of the AFC to build national unity could pull us back from the brink.

As I told you, my friend, the PPP can stay on the sideline and gripe about the AFC-APNU alliance, or come on board the Freedom Train that leads towards ethnic healing and national reconciliation. If Sri Lanka can do it, after years of fighting, so can we!

Yours faithfully,
Moses V. Nagamootoo
AFC Vice-Chairman

Cheddi and Janet Jagan must be turning in their graves – says daughter at memorial

APRIL 5, 2012 | BY KNEWS | FILED UNDER NEWS 

“My parents were probably the most incorruptible people you would ever find; their honesty and integrity were of very high standards, but unfortunately do not exist or I don’t see it in many of the leaders of the party and government.”

These comments came from the daughter of the late Guyanese leaders Dr Cheddi Jagan and Mrs Janet Jagan, when she addressed a memorial forum at Babu John.

Ms Jagan- Brancier speaking to the audience

She said that the current leaders of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) and government lack “the very, very, very high moral standards” which her parents embodied when they were alive.

Mrs Nadira Jagan-Brancier scolded the party for putting out platforms using her parents’ name– particularly her father’s– and not living up really and truly to what her parents had stood for. “It is not enough to go out there and make lovely speeches about who my parents were, what they did and the legacy that we’re carrying on”.

She said that her parents fought for sugar workers, the poor and down-trodden in Guyana and in the world. “That’s who they stood for, and again, I think the party has moved away– not the party but certain elements in the party— from these very, very important values that held the party together and what makes the PPP what it is and so for me, when I look at some of the things happening, my parents must be turning in their graves– but they must be churning up in the waters of the rivers (in which their ashes were sprinkled)”.

She said that if the PPP is saying that it is following Cheddi Jagan and Janet Jagan as a living guide, “the only way you can follow them is to return to basics, return to who this party is which is the working- class party, obviously you have to support other people, but the base of this party is a working- class party, get back to being a non- corruptible party, so people can’t point a finger and say ‘there is so much corruption, why should we worry?”

The daughter of the late leaders then pleaded with the PPP/C leaders and members to get back to the high and moral values. “If the leaders don’t show the moral values then people won’t do it, and your children won’t grow up with moral values. And if your families don’t show moral values, then society as a whole will lose that”.

“Their lives were involved in politics so their time for me and my brother was very limited…They weren’t there the amount of hours that most people would have their parents around, but the times that they were, it was what they called quality time, not quantity…so the times they spent with us– memories that I will have for the rest of my life”.

She noted that her parents were very normal, simple, and humble people and a “very, very loving couple”. She recalled sitting down for breakfast in the mornings around the family table and listening to the news from Guyana or the BBC “and you weren’t allowed to talk”.

She noted that they lived very simple lives and told the gathering that the house, in which her parents once lived, is now open to the public. “The house is there and I really encourage people to use the opportunity to go in Bel Air and see the house where they lived…They lived a very simple life; they didn’t have big ostentatious homes that you see nowadays that government officials and party officials have, which is a very sad thing, personally”.

Ms Jagan- Brancier also encouraged persons to visit the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre in Kingston. “This was when my father was Premier from 1961 to 1964”.
“Most people think of my mom as only writing for the Mirror and other political things; my mom wrote a lot of children stories— I hope that people who have children would know this. She was also a poet and wrote some beautiful poems.”

Mrs Jagan’s prison diaries, she said, are all important documents that Mrs Jagan-Brancier urged persons to read. The Cheddi Jagan website is also another feature that she urged the public to access information www.jagan.org “and on this website, you will find information”.