AFC Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan has described the resignation of Ralph Ramkarran from the PPP as a dark day for politics and while senior members of the PPP/C remained mum yesterday on the shock departure sources said efforts are being discussed to have the former Speaker of the National Assembly return to the fold.
“I don’t think you would get a comment from me or any member of the PPP,” was the blunt response from executive member of the party and Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Robert Persaud when contacted yesterday by Stabroek News for a comment on Ramkarran’s resignation on Saturday.
Efforts to contact several other key members of the party for a comment proved futile and Ramkarran himself could not be reached for a comment. Freedom House said on Saturday that efforts were being made to engage Ramkarran on his decision and concerns. Ramkarran, whose family has long been associated with the party and is seen as one of its most credible and capable figures, tendered his resignation to PPP General Secretary, President Donald Ramotar on Saturday morning.
President Ramotar left the country on Saturday night for a Caricom Heads of Govern-ment meeting and Stabroek News was unable to ascertain whether he and Ramkarran had met.
A party insider told Stabroek News yesterday that efforts are being made to reconcile differences which exist between Ramkarran and certain individuals in the party. According to the source, as far as he is aware, the party stalwart of over 50 years has no problem with the PPP/C but rather was upset at some comments made at an executive meeting on Friday. “I hope that magnanimity and good sense would prevail and the differences can be reconciled in the best interest of the party,” the source told this newspaper.
Ramkarran’s resignation followed fallout from an explosive column in the Mirror newspaper two weeks ago in which he said that corruption was pervasive and the government needed to do something about it. He said on Saturday that following Friday’s meeting, “further participation in the activities of the PPP would be a challenge.” In a brief statement to Stabroek News, Ramkarran had said that at a meeting of the PPP’s Executive Committee on Friday, “disquiet was expressed about the confidentiality of discussions in my presence having regard to my recent article on corruption.”
“However difficult it might be to link the two issues, the intensity of the discussions were such that further participation in the activities of the PPP would be a challenge,” he said. Ramkarran’s letter to Ramotar said simply that he was tendering his resignation.
The PPP later confirmed receipt of Ramkarran’s resignation and a statement said that “Immediately, efforts were made to engage Mr. Ramkarran on his concerns and his decision.” The terse statement said that the efforts are continuing.
A senior government official yesterday while declining to comment on the resignation praised the contribution of Ramkarran to the party and the country. “I do know that Mr. Ramkarran has been a very valuable asset to the party and the country and I hope whatever differences there are that they can be worked out,” the government official said when contacted.
Former executive member of the PPP Moses Nagamootoo, who left the party last year after years of acrimonious relations and is now a member of the Alliance For Change (AFC), yesterday declined to comment on Ramkarran’s resignation when contacted.
‘Sad day’
Meanwhile, AFC’s Chair-man Ramjattan- himself a former member of the PPP/C- described Ramkarran’s resignation as a “sad” and “dark” day for the party and politics in the country. He said that when a personality held in high esteem like Ramkarran has to go the way he did, it is a “dark day for politics itself and the PPP/C.”
“It proves that the group-think that you have to think exactly like how they want you to think in the PPP/C, still dominate its democratic centralism and it is stifling all dissenting views,” Ramjattan said in an invited comment. According to Ramjattan the departure of Ramkarran should be seen as vindication that the government and the PPP/C will stop at nothing to hide all the corruption that permeates almost every sector of the country. “It reveals the characterization of an authoritarian government, they want to spout democracy but they don’t want to live it. The true democrat and reformers like Ralph Ramkarran are simply going to be weeded out one by one,” Ramjattan said.
He added that those with a propensity to speak out are going to become so fearful that they will permanently shut up. This, he said, “will do a horrendous negative for the culture of that party which has remained such an institution on our political landscape.”
As a result, Ramjattan said, there is an urgent need for the ground membership of the party to take on the struggle to liberalise and to democratise the party since it is not going to happen from the top. “If they too are stifled and censored I ask them to wholly come across to the AFC,” Ramjattan, a founder member of that party, said.
Leader of the main opposition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) David Granger in an invited comment noted that Ramkarran has been in the belly of the PPP for 50 years and to him it has come as no surprise that the former Speaker would speak about corruption and subsequently resign. However, Granger said what he found surprising was that it took Ramkarran this long to speak out since he could not have learnt of the party’s corruption recently. He added that he does not think that Ramkarran’s resignation would change the PPP/C.
This year was Ramkarran’s 50th with the PPP since officially joining the party in 1962. His father, Boysie Ramkarran, was a leading light of the party and a confidant of the late PPP leader, Dr. Cheddi Jagan. His departure is seen as a major blow to the PPP/C and an even bigger challenge following the departure of party stalwart, Nagamootoo.
Ramkarran, a Senior Counsel and former two-term Speaker of the National Assembly, had stuck with the PPP through thick and thin, having to fend off a barrage of accusations from across the political spectrum and public that he had turned a blind eye to numerous transgressions by PPP/C governments particularly under former president Bharrat Jagdeo.
His forthright views on corruption placed the ruling PPP/C in a spot as both Freedom House and the Office of the President have consistently tried to play down suggestions of entrenched graft in large public sector infrastructure programmes and for the supply of goods and services.
However, Member of the PPP’s Central and Executive Committees and Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee, in a letter to Stabroek News published on Saturday in response to an article about the lack of response from Freedom House on Ramkarran’s corruption statement, said that this newspaper “sought to elicit a statement from the party on Mr Ramkarran’s view with the sole purpose of keeping the issue alive; driving a wedge between Mr Ramkarran and the party; projecting the party in a poor light…”
In recent times, Ramkarran has been penning forthright columns in the Mirror on issues of national interest.
