Dear Editor,
I have always maintained that the PPP is not a perfect political party. In fact, no political party is perfect. The party is not in heaven, it is on earth. Usually it is those who leave the party for one reason or another who would pontificate and seek to find fault with the party to which they themselves once belonged, but having left, opt to expose what they deem to be faults in the public domain.
We, who continue to soldier on with the party, and to battle with the fault lines and trip wires do so because we want a better party. We are committed to overcoming the challenges that arise from time to time within and outside the party.
Life itself throws up challenges in the party, in government, in parliament and wherever the party wields influence in society.
In this regard, there are two choices available, either you stay and deal with the challenges or you walk away either because you didn’t get your way or you simply didn’t have the staying power.
When the PPP was in opposition, the challenges were many; those challenges grew into tendencies within the party; some members have a predisposition to gravitate towards leaders, who articulate a particular viewpoint that appears to be attractive. Those individuals would eventually form themselves into factions or cliques. When this happens such developments pose a danger to unity and solidarity within the party. It can be more damaging when factions become organized with the party structure, thus the necessity to guard against factionalism and cliquism within the party.
The PPP’s Code of Conduct discourages such negative formations within the party.
The existence of political and ideological tendencies within a political party is nothing new; it is a natural evolution of the extant political and ideological thinking influenced by the social, economic and political dynamics obtaining in society. A political party such as the PPP with close connections to all classes and social strata in society will obviously be affected by the way they perceive and react to political, economic and social developments in society. Their thoughts, perceptions and reactions will no doubt spring from their class interests which is influenced by the way events unfold in the wider society.
The PPP has never been and cannot be immune from these social, political and economic phenomena since, in the first place, it remains a party with a large mass following and growing influence in Guyana, secondly, it is the party that holds office and thirdly, it is the party whose programmes and policies, vis-à-vis government impacts the lives of every section of the population and perhaps every single Guyanese.
We know from experience that the struggle to win political power is difficult, but the struggle to hold political power is even more difficult.
There are only two political parties in Guyana that have this experience, the PPP and the PNC.
A party holding power will be under greater scrutiny than a party in the opposition – not that the opposition parties do not come under scrutiny at all. On the contrary, while the party in office will come under greater scrutiny with respect to issues pertaining to its governance and all that that entails as well as for its programmes, policies, and above all, upholding the constitution, the opposition parties will come under scrutiny as regards law and order issues, their predisposition to acts of subversion as well as in respect of their programmes and policies.
In Guyana, the PNC and its surrogates in the APNU have come under little or no scrutiny by sections of the media whose editors and senior journalists support the political opposition. Henry Jeffrey in his ‘Future Notes’ would from time to time offer feeble and weak-kneed criticisms of Mr Granger and his APNU, while feature writers and columnists in the opposition media are afforded dailv and weekly space to launch scurrilous and baseless attacks against the PPP – the objective being to turn the minds of people against the PPP, and to make the party look bad with the hope that people would not vote for the PPP/C at elections.
But this is nothing new. Our critics have been legion from time immemorial. If it wasn’t race, it was ideology; if it wasn’t ideology, it was personal grouses; and if it wasn’t personal grouses, it was sheer bitterness because the losers did not get their way in the party so they left or as they claim were ‘driven out’ only to proclaim themselves the ‘true ones’ while those who remained were deemed the ‘sychophants’ and the ‘subverted and stilled.’ One is left to wonder what were the roles of these ‘true ones’ when men like Vincent Teekah, Ranji Chandisingh, Halim Majeed, among others, were ‘driven out’ from the party while those who chose to remain with the party as the ‘true ones’ eventually found themselves being ‘driven out’ by others. What a turn of events!
These developments are not unique to the PPP; such has been the case with the PNC and other political parties in Guyana, a tour d’horizon of the political landscape would show it strewn with political has-beens, wannabes, failed presidential aspirants, victims of red carpet fever, political charlatans and narcissuses.
The PPP has always been and continues to be a party in which intense internal debate and discussion take place on a wide range of issues. Throughout the lifetime of Cheddi Jagan as General Secretary of the party he had to convince members of the Central Committee and the Executive Committee at separate meetings whenever he wanted to introduce new and innovative political or ideological thinking and initiatives within the party and by the party.
This was the case as regards participation or non-participation in the 1973 elections, the 1978 referendum and the 1980 elections; the decision to launch the civil resistance and non-cooperation campaign; the policy of critical support, the policy of alliances, the National Patriotic Front, and National Front Govern-ment, and later, the formation of the Civic component of the PPP.
The same obtains today. Neither the General Secretary, the President nor the former President can impose a policy initiative on the party’s leadership simply because of the position they hold; what matters is how convincing, sound and logical their arguments are in the view of other members of the Executive and/or Central Committee. Therefore to say that any single leader has a “grip on the throat of the party” is total nonsense. The make-up of the current leadership of the party and the way the party works makes this almost impossible. With Com-rades Cheddi and Janet gone, we do not profess to have any primus inter pares within the leadership of the party.
What we are witnessing in the unfolding situation, is an attempt to weaken not strengthen the party. Our attackers do not have any interest in a stronger PPP.
These masqueraders blame President Ramotar for former President Jagdeo’s abiding political influence in the country, while they blame Mr Jagdeo for damaging the party’s political fortunes, pretending to have the party’s interest at heart. And as if this was not enough the “core leadership” of the party is accused of “succumbing to the personal ambition of Jagdeo.”
Since the PPP in a previous statement already expressed its views on Mr Jagdeo’s tenure in office, there is no need to repeat it again; suffice it to say, however, that at some point in time Mr Jagdeo will break his silence to deal with the political barnacles. It is to be assumed that he will have much to say and to expose. Who he will target and what he will say is anybody’s guess, but this much we can expect; instead of saying things to divide the party or to undermine President Ramotar, as some are wont to believe, Mr Jagdeo will certainly have the last laugh. His critics should therefore be on the look out and keep in mind that it is easy to criticize, but to be criticized is quite another matter. They just can’t take it.
Yours faithfully,
Clement J Rohee
General Secretary
People’s
Progressive Party
