Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jan 31, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
I know I can use the above caption for this column without the risk of getting another libel suit from Bharrat Jagdeo and one from Ramotar. I can assure Ruel Johnson, that he can criticize Frank Anthony, the Minister of Sport and Culture, as much as he wants, Anthony isn’t going to sue for libel.
I doubt that the title of this column will lead to a libel, because the nation has seen photographs of Messrs Jagdeo (oops! that should be Dr. Jagdeo) and Ramotar back-balling. What is scandalous about reference to a back-balling leader when he in fact back-balls?
Roger Luncheon’s published testimony in Jagdeo’s libel against me has put an end to Ministers and political despots running to the courts to shut people up. Dr Luncheon was grilled for four days and said some revealing things, things that shocked the nation. For example, Luncheon watched my lawyer Nigel Hughes straight in his face and agreed that at the time, no African Guyanese was qualified to fill existing ambassadorial posts.
Don’t forget that President Ramotar made reference to the Jagdeo libel last year when he addressed the Port Mourant congress of his party. He said that the libel weakened the PPP during the election and the opposition took full political advantage of the court proceedings. What Ramotar failed to mention was that those proceedings were based on facts. (See my response to Ramotar’s confession in my August 6, 2013 column).
After two years in power for Mr. Ramotar, what are the similarities and differences between these two PPP apparatchiks? In terms of political resemblance, the back-balling habit puts them in the same category of leaders who lack appreciation of time and place. But maybe that is all they have in common – back-balling. Ramotar and Jagdeo appear to be two politicians with almost nothing in common except they belong to the same political organization.
The differences between the two men are very obvious. Take Jagdeo. His presidency was tormented by the ridicule that came from all over Guyana and the world in relation to a certain style of behaviour. Mr. Jagdeo took this on and it sank his soul. It led him to excessive authoritarian output.
When I have on my academic hat, I argue that analysts must see Jagdeo’s descent into tyranny as stemming from this source. Jagdeo reacted to the crescendo of rumours that accompanied his twelve years in power by showing people he can be a bad guy, despite the “scandalizing” description of him.
I am inflexible in my belief that the analyst will not do a competent work on Jagdeo’s dictatorial descent if Jagdeo’s reaction to a particular rumour is not factored into the research.
Ramotar did not have to face such a phantasmagoria of rumours about his lifestyle when he assumed the presidency. This may explain why he does not react angrily and is never in the mode of showing people the power he has. But this is a minor difference between the two men. The dissimilarities are countless.
First, Jagdeo was a very self-confident leader. He knew what he wanted, how to go about getting it, and would not be dissuaded by others. Ramotar is the opposite. He is a self-effacing human whose inferiority complex drives him to take a back seat, and compels him to seek solace in the wisdom of others.
Whereas Ramotar looks to Luncheon, Teixeira, Irfaan Ali and Ashni Singh for guidance, Jagdeo had contempt for his Ministers. There is no way Jagdeo would have thought of Irfaan Ali as a strategic thinker, the way Ramotar does. For Jagdeo, he was the leader and he knew best.
Ramotar knows he is the leader, but he knows how he got the job – not through creative endeavours, charisma, intellectual prowess, grounding with the Guyanese people or political achievements – but through the brutal feat of realpolitik engineering by Mr. Jagdeo.
One should not deceive oneself so foolishly to think it was the article on corruption that led to the exodus of Ralph Ramkarran. Ramkarran became an emotionally infuriated personality from the day he saw how Jagdeo manipulated and coerced the leadership of the PPP into giving Ramotar the presidential candidacy for the 2011 general elections. Ramkarran from that day was gone from the PPP.
Nobody takes Russian Prime Minister Medvedev seriously, because they know he is a literal puppet of Putin. The Guyanese nation knows that Jagdeo put Ramotar there. Medvedev was faithful to Putin when Putin made him president. Ramotar will do the same. He will not even utter a whisper of criticism against Jagdeo. And this is where Ramotar has become a tiny footnote in history.
Jagdeo giving Exxon 102 cent to collect 2 cent.
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