No formal government post for me – Jagdeo says

Former president Bharrat Jagdeo says he will not be taking up any formal position in a Donald Ramotar-led administration, but he is prepared to assist the new president in a more informal way.

He also rejected views that he had cost the PPP/C a majority victory at the polls, saying that this was primarily due to complacency among many traditional PPP supporters.

“I said to Donald Ramotar I don’t want a formal position in the government… and I don’t want anything full-time,” Jagdeo told reporters yesterday, following the swearing-in of Ramotar as the country’s seventh executive president.   While campaigning, Ramotar had described Jagdeo as one of the country’s most important resources and said he would be utilizing the services of the former head of state should he win at the November 28 polls.

Jagdeo, who served for 12 years as president, said yesterday that were he to assist Ramotar he would be doing it on a pro-bono basis and it would only be taking up part of his time. “Not anything full-time,” Jagdeo said, indicating that he did not want an 8 am to 4 pm job.

Now that he has demitted office, Jagdeo said, he will remain in Guyana and “enjoy the country”. He will now be able to tap into the benefits outlined in the Former Presidents (Benefits and Other Facilities) Act.

Jagdeo said while he had gotten three lucrative offers to work in the area of climate change he has not given them much thought. According to him, he is focused on living a normal life now and indicated that he may even be doing some writing.

Ramotar will lead a minority PPP/C government after opposition coalition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) together clinched 33 seats in the 65-seat National Assembly. With 48.3 percent of the votes at Monday’s poll, the PPP/C secured 32 seats in the National Assembly.

Responding to criticisms that he may have cost the PPP/C a majority by his attitudes and pronouncements on the campaign trail, Jagdeo rejected this and cited voter complacency as the key factor.

“First of all, I wasn’t running. I wasn’t the presidential candidate and secondly if you look at the turnout in some areas–it was specific to some areas–so we have analysed that and we see that complacency [was] the biggest factor.  Jagdeo said on Elections Day, he was in Mon Repos along with Anil Nandlall encouraging people to vote since many of them were taking a PPP/C victory for granted.  “Our people were overconfident and the low turnout in some of our areas affected us,” the former Head of State said. Jagdeo also said that “the usual strong PPP logistics were not there”. He said the party will work to correct these issues.

Regarding the PPP/C winning votes in traditional PNCR strongholds, Jagdeo insisted that the PPP/C was able to attract cross-over votes while APNU was unsuccessful in this regard. “I think we had cross-over votes. I think we had significant cross-over votes,” he said, while adding that the party had been affected by “the worst of five storms…, which I shall not speak of here; the worst of five storms hit us.”

Jagdeo said that in spite of this occurrence, the PPP/C still emerged with 32 seats in Parliament.  He said that at these elections the PPP/C got forty votes at various polling stations that were located in opposition strongholds.

Questioned how a hung parliament would affect the new government, Jagdeo said that while this limits the freedom of the administration there are success stories of governments operating with such a system. “A hung parliament always does limit your degree of freedom or what you can pass and what you can’t pass but many countries have operated with hung parliaments in the past and have done so successfully,” Jagdeo said. He pointed to Ramotar’s speech where the new president said he was committed to working with the opposition. “Of course, it depends what they want because often there is a trade off. Sometimes the demands are so great for working together that it becomes very difficult,” Jagdeo opined. “But let us say this is a clean slate right now…,” he added.