The APNU+AFC alliance will not respond to the many “lies” of former President Bharrat Jagdeo uttered during the ongoing campaign for the May 11 general elections, the alliance’s campaign co-chair Raphael Trotman says.
“It’s impossible to match a liar,” he told Stabroek News yesterday. “He is an egomaniac, he craves attention,” he said while adding that they are not going to give Jagdeo the attention that he wants. He said that the former president has spoken many lies and the alliance is not going to respond to the “nonsense” and “every filthy thing” that Jagdeo utters in his campaigning for the PPP/C.
He noted that Jagdeo is not the presidential candidate and he is trying to bait the alliance.
“We’re staying on message” and sticking to their plan, he said while adding that they are trying to maintain some semblance of decorum in the campaign.
Jagdeo has been campaigning for the PPP/C and uttering inflammatory remarks. The Media Monitoring Unit (MMU) of the Guyana Elections Commission in its first report on the current electoral season said that remarks by Jagdeo at Port Mourant on March 8 were racially divisive. After reviewing the remarks made, the MMU said it took the position that it was obvious that Jagdeo “was using a racial mobilization incident that allegedly occurred during the 2011 elections [which, for the record, was the first time such details were ever publicly disclosed by anyone from the ruling PPP/C, the opposition political parties, local civil society, international elections observers, or the media] to make the point that racism will not be tolerated by his political party, the PPP/C. On the face of it, this is salutary. However, what was palpably disconcerting about the remarks made, is where they were uttered, the occasion on which they were stated, and the immediate receptors of the message.”
Despite the widespread criticism of his remarks, at a press conference on March 10, Jagdeo defended his presentation, saying that he was “proud” of raising the issue of race.
More recently, at Albion on Sunday, Jagdeo told attendees that if they voted for the APNU+AFC coalition and that party won they ran the risk of having their homes invaded by the military. “When they link up with the military, as they have done, and come into your homes and start kicking the doors down and when they come after you, who is going to be there?” Jagdeo asked.
“They are going to subvert the professionalism of the army and police because there will be no professional army or police. The entire executive is dominated by senior ex-policemen and ex-soldiers there can be no professionalism as was done in the past. So there are lots of things we have to be fearful about and lots of things we have to do in the future. I urge you when you go home think on these things,” he added.
He also said that his party has asked for international observers to witness the May 11 elections as it believes that if it wins marginally there would be unrest fuelled by the opposition.
His comments did not go down well with current and past hierarchy of the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Defence Force and Jagdeo was accused of scaremongering to being “downright insulting” to the men and women who have or are serving in both disciplines.
APNU+AFC Campaign Co-Chairs Trotman and Joseph Harmon had previously called for Jagdeo to come clean about his stance and intended position in the PPP/C’s election ticket. “I need to know if it’s Mr Jagdeo running for president or Ramotar, because I see Jagdeo challenging people to debates, coming front and centre. So, is it that he is overshadowing Ramotar and bringing himself back as the president…? The public needs to know,” Trotman had said in response to a question from Stabroek News.
Jagdeo had previously said that he would not be on the PPP/C list. “I am prepared to help my government in a capacity. I believe I have some skills. I do not want a full-time job… I will not be on the ticket. I will not be on the list because I am not interested in going into parliament,” he informed. However, when the list was issued, his name was on it.
In February, President Donald Ramotar ann-ounced that Jagdeo will chair a new National Economic Council (NEC) to accelerate the modernisation agenda and that he would also help with the preparation of the PPP/C manifesto for the upcoming general elections. Since then, there has been no word on what work Jagdeo or the NEC has done or who else is on it.
