Dear Editor,
Former House Speaker, Mr Ralph Ramkarran’s most recent column, ‘Ramotar holds the pen of history in his hand’ (SN, September 28), continues to reflect the mind of a man who apparently still believes in miracles; one of which is that President Donald Ramotar, despite his appearance of ineptitude and indifference, has an ace up his sleeve that will, sooner rather than later, overturn the apple cart or derail the gravy train being run via remote control by Mr Jagdeo.
I have not read or heard a bad word written or spoken by Mr Ramkarran about Mr Ramotar. This has caused me to believe he has both an abiding sense of respect for Mr Ramotar, and his will and ability to make the overdue changes needed in the PPP and its government, but it may be a question of timing or readiness.
Back on March 30, this year, Stabroek News reported on a provocative column by Mr Ramkarran, ‘Ramotar should prise open Jagdeo’s grip on the party.’ Mr Ramkarran was responding to a published ‘poll’ that exposed former President Bharrat Jagdeo’s campaign for a third term and was seen as a direct challenge to President Ramotar who, in Mr Ramkarran’s opinion, was paying the price for his inaction. If this is true, then what exactly is the President still waiting for?
Mr Ramkarran has developed a proclivity for opinion pieces that are sometimes thoughtful and other times trite, but he is definitely on the money in this latest assessment that the PPP is misreading the mood of the electorate. And it has nothing to do with the parliamentary opposition, government critics or even the private media; it has to do with the party itself.
Mr Ramkarran probably knows there are many in the PPP at senior levels who also do not like the direction in which the party is being taken, so when he writes, he may well be echoing the views of those disgruntled and distressed comrades who also want to see a change, but don’t have the courage to speak up and out like Mr Ramkarran.
But if there are two former PPPites who know what exactly is taking place in the party and that change is the only antidote, they have to be Messrs Ramkarran and Moses Nagamootoo, which is why both men badly wanted to become their party’s presidential candidates and make the necessary changes.
Since back in January 2005, Mr Nagamootoo told a Bronx gathering that he planned to run for his party’s candidacy to be president, even though Mr Jagdeo was eligible for a second term in 2006. Mr Nagamootoo maintained that pursuit right up until 2011 when the system produced Ramotar as the preferred choice.
And as early as July 2010, during a labour conference in Guyana, Mr Ramkarran declared his interest in becoming his party’s presidential candidate in 2011. Under the caption, ‘Ending extreme poverty would top my agenda,’ (SN, July 18, 2010), Mr Ramkarran listed a number of areas he would tackle if he became president. One of them was corruption.
But then he sought to contextualize the perception of increased corruption resulting from expenditure increasing since the party came into office in 1992, and he did not necessarily believe there was more corruption then. He and his colleagues on the Constitution Reform Commission, nevertheless, took steps to deal with the issue via the passage of Public Procurement Commission legislation. “So, my conscience is clear in the sense that I did what is in my powers to do to deal with corruption. The rest is for the government to do. If the perception is that the government is not moving as fast as it should, the government has to answer.”
Fast forward to June 17, 2012, and we find Mr Ramkarran penning an explosive piece in the Mirror that laid claim to an awareness “of enough verifiable cases of corruption” to be satisfied that it is “pervasive.” This earned him the ire and disrespect of certain of his party comrades and prompted his headline-grabbing resignation. In an invited comment on the resignation, Mr Nagamootoo said that “Ramkarran will, in the eyes of a great many Guyanese, particularly the ‘Jaganites,’ be remembered as a decent, clean politician” (KN, July 2, 2012).
Mr Nagamootoo continued by pointing out, “Ralph best represented a moderate outlook for the PPP, and was seen as a compromise candidate to succeed the late Jagans in both the party and state leadership, which was why I backed him in 2010 when I withdrew from the selection process for a presidential candidate. He was defeated by undemocratic methods and maligned for taking his concerns about corruption public.”
Within that historic construct lies the birth of the Ramotar presidency, which seemed to fit right in with the party’s need to protect the corruption that both Messrs Ramkarran and Nagamootoo knew and talked about. But it has to be that Mr Ramkarran genuinely believes, perhaps like others still in the PPP, that Mr Ramotar can and should derail the gravy train of corruption. Or else why would he urge the President to pry Mr Jagdeo’s fingers from around the party’s throat or use the pen of history in his hand to write the changes needed?
Could Mr Ramkarran be on to something of which the rest of the nation knows nothing, or is it possible that the President is in over his head because it is not the PPP that is running Guyana any more, hence he cannot save himself, the PPP or Guyana?
Think on this: in a June 23, 2013, piece, ‘The Kleptocratic Republic of Guyana,’ Mr Ramkarran reportedly disclosed that at the apex of corruption in Guyana is, “a group of wealthy and influential businessmen who have high political connections.
They have access through their political connections, to information on potential opportunities that are likely to emerge in the near to medium term and are in a position to make investments now as to cash in on those opportunities down the road. The PPP leadership is supported and financed by all these groups and state decisions are influenced by their interests.”
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
