Dear Editor,
Well, well, well, Forbes Burnham and the Jagans would be immensely proud. President Jagdeo says secret balloting could be a danger to the PPP presidential candidate election. Never mind the PPP is a danger to itself, the nation and democracy. What did I tell Mr Ramkarran. Same goes for Moses Nagamootoo. This is what happens when the democracy in democratic centralism gets so centralized that it becomes just centralism and that centralism becomes totalitarianism. This is what happens when good men sit silent inside closed doors. Secret ballots lead to bizarre promises, according to the President.
This move is checkmate for those who after fiddling better than Nero while the Jagans and Jagdeo burned the PPP with rank authoritarianism, and a cabal of 15 close cohorts helped with a willing rubber-stamping named democratic centralism, only woke up from their silence when the lure of power was before them and they decided they wanted secret balloting to gain that power. You shall reap what you sow. The Big Kahuna has spoken and that is all to be said. The greatest irony is that these men who swallowed wrongdoing whole then cannot even criticize this rape of democracy now. They can’t criticize this internal dictatorship because there is a wonderful little rule of the PPP that states a member cannot publicly criticize the party. They publicly criticize and they are kicked out, which makes it easier for the Executive Committee to vote this chapter into autocratic history. Cheddi Jagan and Janet Jagan must be proud of the actions of their groomed disciple.
So President Jagdeo may very well get his Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham moment. He will probably try to get undisputed leadership of the party and the right to select the government along with the handpicked president. Or he will likely try to slide into a key portfolio such as Minister of Finance or perhaps even Prime Minister. With the majority of the PPP Executive Committee in allegiance to Bharrat Jagdeo, this show of hands thing is an electoral grenade for the warriors of silence and critics of convenience. With the majority of the EC and the rest of the Central Committee dependent on government for their livelihoods, the die is cast. The legacy of the Jagans and Forbes Burnham is alive. The people of Guyana must fight this sickness to prevent it from ever happening. For it will continue to consume this nation. Those who vote for this if it ever unfolds deserve their fate. Many within the PPP will not take this lying down nor will many within this nation. We are in for a frightening moment of high noon and high drama in this nation if these words of the President demonstrate intent which is then acted on.
Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell
