What happened at Freedom House on Monday to cause Ralph Ramkarran, Gail Teixeira and Clement Rohee to give up their bid to win the Presidential candidacy for the governing People’s Progressive Party?
In the end, Donald Ramotar got the nod without a vote cast.
The governing Party now goes to the polls with a 61-year old University of Guyana graduate who rose through the ranks to command Freedom House.
The main Opposition People’s National Congress hopes to win the national vote under the 66-year old ex-military leader, Brigadier David Granger, who strives to defend himself against accusations of Army cooperation in vote-rigging under Forbes Burnham’s regime.
Hoping to outflank these old warriors, Khemraj Ramjattan runs as a rebel against the old order. He just turned 50 years old, and champions ground-breaking reforms and a clean cut from the country’s strife-riddled past.
How ironic that the PPP/C selected its candidate without holding an election, as only Ramotar stood after mysterious Monday. This party led the fight for free and fair elections, and won the government after democracy got restored in 1992.
The PNC/R, which ruled for 28 years under the authority of rigged elections, selected Granger at transparent party elections, despite some internal dissent.
Both traditional parties also carry into this year’s national elections the stigma of having a power behind the throne: Bharrat Jagdeo in the case of the PPP/C and Robert Corbin at the PNCR.
When Bharrat Jagdeo got the nod to become President after Janet Jagan gave up the post, the country looked to his youthful energy as a good thing. His reign proved controversial, and were his Presidency to be graded at CXC, he would scrape a Grade 4, were the examiner to be generous.
But, he is leaving a legacy that resonates with the young generation. Young people care about the environment and the Internet, both Jagdeo’s passion projects.
Now, with leaders of the main parties being in their 60’s and having such strong ties to the past, young people may feel left out.
How exciting and inspiring and refreshing it would have been to have Gail Teixeira running as the candidate for the PPP/C, and Faith Harding at the PNCR.
But, alas, politics in this country offers little that inspires, refreshes or excites.
The magnanimous embrace at the National Park on April 2 between President Jagdeo and Raphael Trotman, leader of the opposition Alliance For Change, stirred the national imagination. We saw what’s possible.
Then mysterious Monday shattered the moment. The country may have taken a step back into the dark age with the selection process that propelled Ramotar in sight of the throne at Office of the President.
The events at Freedom House on Monday, April 4, remain shrouded in mystery. No one seems to want to talk about what happened. The media waited outside for news, but did not get the details.
The spokesman, Roger Luncheon, only said the other candidates withdrew, and Ramotar got selected. He did not say why the withdrawal, and both Ramkarran and Teixeira refused to comment.
Why?
The reasons may be complex. This governing party still lives in a mentality of paranoia and fear.
The party’s constituency suffered enormous pain and political marginalization from 1966 right up to 1992. Many of the current leaders grew up in this era, and they do not forget.
The party thus got stuck in this rut of a fearful mentality.
And on Monday, this fear factor may have got played out, leaving Ramkarran, Teixeira and others speechless, while making Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee a happy man.
I think Freedom House focused intensely on the security of its constituency, and Ramotar came out as the best man to be a general for the people.
Under the perspective of fearing a repeat of the “horrible” past, Granger stands as a connotation of the decades of pain of the Party’s constituency.
Of course, that ideal person could only be Ramotar, a man with connections and influence on the street and in the villages, a man who not only understands that the party’s constituency might be under “threat of suffering” again, but who has access to the means and the sort of people to see that such would never happen again.
So the country marched right back into the dark age of visionless leadership, because the focus is fear.
A country cannot develop without vision. But who cares about vision if the body is under threat?
President Jagdeo came into a vision late in his Presidency, and is leaving the REDD project, Amalia Falls hydro and the cross-country Internet hookup as the legacy out of that vision.
Forbes Burnham nursed a vision for the country. Dr Cheddi Jagan did, too, in wanting to make Nelson Mandela’s formula of Healing and Reconciliation a national political policy.
In fact, the AFC has adopted that Jagan vision, and Ramjattan talks about it constantly, and it manifested in full force on April 2 when Trotman and Jagdeo reached out to each other in a miracle embrace at the National Park, with the nation watching.
Out of this fear factor driving the ruling party’s political policies, the country suffers. For, where do we go from here?
Neither Granger nor Ramotar inspires the young people of this nation. The young do not remember, or much care about, the past half century. They look to 2070, not 1970.
This election may very well see an alarming drop in young people voting. It seems as if only the past matters to the current leaders, not the future.
Leadership in the 21st century world calls for leaders inspiring young people to create their future, to put their energies and talents to the wheel and build the society.
Leadership looks forward to the future. A leadership that looks back in fear is liable to stumble and fall instead of progress.
When Granger got the nod, the nation waited in hope for inspiration to come from Freedom House. Monday instead confirmed the worst of our fears: the traditional parties hold no qualms about retreating into a dark age of standing erect and rigid in self-protection.
And looking at the world in fear breeds insecurity, distrust, cloak-and-dagger secrecy and paranoia.
On Monday, April 4, such a message emanated from Freedom House.
Again, we are left waiting for a leader to rise up to inspire the nation with words of wisdom, healing and reconciliation, forgiveness and a magnanimous sharing of the resources of state.
Meanwhile, the brain drain that leaves more and more of a leadership vacuum, continues, as the power squabble rages on.
