Dear Editor,
Days before President Donald Ramotar’s beleaguered administration is set to present what threatens to be the most contentious budget in the history of the PPP’s twenty-two years in government, the ‘results’ of a clearly concocted poll appears in the Guyana Times, owned by former President Bharrat Jagdeo’s good friend Dr Bobby Ramroop, declaring that Jagdeo is by far the best PPP candidate for the next general elections. It is useful to note here that not only is Mr Jagdeo constitutionally barred from running again, but also that President Ramotar is barely halfway through his own first term.
The next day, the story appears in the Guyana Chronicle. This time, however, it is alleged that the lead editorial staffers on duty at the time are called in to Office of the President and at the end of it, the acting Editor-in-Chief is allegedly demoted.
There was only one value in that fiasco – it was to show President Ramotar, in the midst of what is a massive PR crisis buffeting his administration, that he had no effective control over a crucial component of the machinery available to any president, the media. Indeed, Mr Ramotar effectively has no direct influence upon any mass media entity in Guyana; the Guyana Times is presumed loyal to Mr Jagdeo, and the Chronicle’s present structure was consolidated under Mr Jagdeo, as was NCN’s; even the composition of the Office of the President staffing is largely the former president’s.
Mr Ramotar’s fatal flaw is that while he was essentially cocooned both physically and ideologically inside Freedom House, Mr Jagdeo built up a complex and effective superstructure of private sector interests, party apparatchiks and strategic state postings which would allow him if he wanted to have influence over what is supposed to be a Ramotar administration. Therefore, even though the original article probably earned the President’s ire, he was given a lesson in his relative impotence when the state paper, which comes under his direct purview as Minister of
Information, published the same story.
The PPP is imploding, and the society is crumbling along with it. The party’s undeniable fear of local government elections is understandable considering that, for example, two of its core support demographics, the sugar and rice industries, are currently in a state of what is effectively rebellion, and despite two industry reps, Komal Chand and Dharamkumar Seeraj respectively,
being PPP MPs. No member of Mr Ramotar’s cabinet, which is basically the Jagdeo cabinet redux, has escaped accusations of either incompetence or impropriety; indeed, the only significant cabinet appointment made by President Ramotar, Ganga Persaud, only recently resigned in a cloud of alleged scandal.
To quote a popular television show, power resides only where men believe it resides, and increasingly the public is being shown that the power of the presidency of Guyana does not reside in the person of Donald Ramotar, despite his occupation of the office.
I am no fan of his party, and while I find him affable in person, I am certainly no admirer of the politics of Mr Ramotar. That said, he is the elected President of Guyana and I find the brazen moves to undermine his authority from within, and in favour of vested interests, to be far more
sinister and dangerous to the democratic process than he claims the elected legislature, in which his government is a minority, to be. It is time that the President realistically recognizes and acknowledges his position – both his weakness within the body politic of his own administration, and the tremendous powers invested in his office – and seek out strategic alliances both inside the alienated old guard of his own party, as well as outside of his political and philosophical comfort zone. In too many circles he is already seen as Guyana’s version of Dmitry Medvedev, a presidential placeholder for the real power behind the throne; if he fails to counter this, both his image and his authority will continue to be undermined with impunity.
Yours faithfully,
Ruel Johnson
