Long accused of straying from the values espoused by late presidents Dr Cheddi Jagan and Mrs Janet Jagan, the PPP/C scrambled to put a Jagan on the party’s list of representatives for the May 11 general election, but the opposition coalition APNU+AFC has a Jagan in its camp too.
Cheddi and Janet’s son Cheddi (Joey) Jagan Jr has endorsed the APNU+AFC coalition, while Dr Clive Jagan, a nephew of the late president is on the PPP/C’s list. The Jagan name still resonates in sections of the country and on the campaign trail both parties have been extolling the virtues of the late presidents.
However, with the late Dr Jagan having founded the PPP, that party has the most to lose and was forced on the defensive recently when former president Bharrat Jagdeo sought to compare his ostentatious lifestyle to that of the late presidents.
That comparison had prompted a sharp rebuke from former PPP stalwart Ralph Ramkarran who had worked closely with the Jagans for many years. The Jagans’ daughter Nadira Jagan-Brancier had questioned why no one in the party defended the Jagans. Attorney and personal assistant to Mrs Jagan, Sadie Amin also blasted Jagdeo for his remarks and attested to the Spartan lifestyle of Mrs Jagan.
After initially remaining silent amid the searing criticisms, the PPP subsequently said that Jagdeo’s remarks did not reflect the official position of the party.
Notwithstanding Jagdeo’s faux pas—he later claimed that his comments were “distorted”—the Jagans’ children have long accused the current PPP leadership of having departed from the ideals of their parents and their humble lifestyles. Jagdeo’s wealth and presidential benefits have long been cited as evidence of the ruling PPP’s departure from its working-class focus under the leadership of Cheddi Jagan.
In 2012, during the memorial service for her mother, Jagan-Brancier said that the high standards of her parents are not seen in the current PPP leadership. “My parents… [were] probably the most incorruptible people you would ever find; their honesty and integrity were of very high standards that unfortunately do not exist, or I don’t see it in many of the leaders of the party and of the government,” she said to loud applause from those present at the event organized by the party’s women’s arm, the Women Progressive Organisation (WPO).
Jagan-Brancier had urged those who were gathered to visit her parent’s Bel Air house which is now a heritage site and is open to the public, to see how humbly they lived compared to how government officials live at present. “I really encourage people to go in Bel Air and see the house where they lived because they lived a very simple life; they didn’t have a big ostentatious house that you see nowadays with government officials, party officials, which is a very sad thing, I think personally,” she said.
She went on to say that the party puts out a platform that says, “Cheddi Jagan our living guide,” but that it is not enough to “go out there and say lovely speeches about who my parents were, what they did and the legacy that we are carrying on.
“To me the most important point [is that]… my parents had very, very, very high moral…standards [and] this I find is very lacking in many of the leaders.” She emphasised that her parents’ honesty and integrity were of very high standards that do not exist in many of the leaders of the party and of the government. She had said that “certain elements” of the party have “moved away from these very, very important values that held the party together and that makes the PPP what it is.
“So all I want to say is if the PPP is saying that they are following Cheddi Jagan and Janet Jagan as a living guide, the only way they could follow Cheddi Jagan and Janet Jagan as a living guide is to return to basics, return to what this party is, which is a working class party.
Obviously you have to support other people, but the base of the party is a working class party; get back to being a non-corruptible party so that people can’t point a finger and say there is so much corruption.”
The Jagans’ son Joey was on the PPP platform in the 2011 elections but has since disassociated himself from it. He has now endorsed the APNU+AFC coalition. In a letter to Stabroek News last month, he had said that the APNU+AFC coalition is a historic moment in Guyanese politics and recalled that his father on innumerable occasions, called for coalition politics.
“Coalition politics is the new world order; President Cheddi, on innumerable occasions, called for coalition politics and in 1992, created the Civic as a partner of the PPP, hoping to expand the civic as a component of the PPP/Civic amalgamation. This was one of his greatest hopes, as he told me on many occasions,” he wrote. Jagan Jr said that since his father’s passing in 1997, the Civic has been marginalized to the point where Prime Minister Sam Hinds became a one-man show after failing President Cheddi’s vision.
“The Civic is dead and any semblance of coalition politics has changed to PPP majority rule (even though they became a minority government),” Jagan Jr wrote. He said that when PPP leaders claim to be following President Cheddi’s vision, they should explain the demise and death of the Civic which Dr Jagan placed so much hope in.
He had said that the PPP/C prime ministerial candidate Elisabeth Harper, even though a good civil servant, is hardly a civic leader and in reality, becomes window dressing for Jagan’s vision – a mirage of what that great man envisioned. “Let coalition politics prevail in our nation and those who oppose it will fall by the wayside, becoming politically insignificant,” he said.
In an earlier interview with Stabroek News, Jagan Jr had said that while the PPP might have been founded by Cheddi Jagan it was not the same party his father would have envisioned.
Meantime, for his part Dr Clive Jagan last week denied claims that the party has moved away from the principles of his uncle. “Presumptions are made that they are moving away but there has been no valid proof that PPP/C have moved away. They still stand for the same policies; they still stand for progress; they still stand for democracy; they still stand for freedom of the press and everything else,” he said.
On the campaign trail, PPP/C leaders including President Donald Ramotar have said that the party has not strayed away from the ideals of the late Jagans. APNU+AFC representatives however, have said that the PPP has strayed
Former party members and most notably Ramkarran, Moses Nagamootoo and Khemraj Ramjattan, have all said that the current PPP leadership has strayed from Jagan’s ideals, especially in its handling of corruption.
