Dear Editor,
I thank Ms Minette Bacchus for the courtesy of reading my article of last Sunday and for responding to it (‘What did Jagan do during his presidency…’ SN, October 15). I wish to respond only to one aspect of her letter, namely, Cheddi Jagan’s (the PPP’s) approach to shared governance after 1992. First, Hoyte was not only adamantly opposed to the idea up to the time Jagan died in 1997 but harboured a deep, personal hostility to him.
This did not prevent the PPP from negotiating an agreement with the PNC in 1994 for sharing the leadership of the city council after the mayoral election results made it feasible. As soon as the PPP’s turn came around for Philomena Sahoy-Shury of the PPP to take up her position as Mayor, the PNC reneged. If the PPP could not get the PNC to share governance at the city council level, imagine what the answer would have been at the national level?
This was not all. The PNC officially adopted shared governance in about 2001. Immediately after the 2006 elections the PPP sought a form of shared governance in Region 8 where the election results did not give a decisive majority to either the PPP or PNC. There was an agreement. On the day of the elections the PNC again reneged.
Is Ms Bacchus surprised that the PPP has now lost interest in shared governance? Instead of posing questions to me, Ms Bacchus would get a much better perspective, and secure a far more fruitful dialogue, if she were to address some of them to her party.
Yours faithfully,
Ralph Ramkarran