PPP/C in and out of government has never stopped engaging the people directly

Jun 19, 2025 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Kaieteur News – In this letter, I will not touch on the extent to which crossovers or defectors from the PNC would impact the PPP as a political party since it is more a question of how it would impact the defector’s understanding of freedom from what captivated them in the past to the freedom to now embrace the Irfaan Ali administration knowing all freedoms are relative.

I will restrict myself to responding to an ‘OPINION’ framed; ‘From ideology to theatre: defections in the age of oil’ written by Nigel Westmaas and published by Demerara Waves in its June 12, 2025 edition.

Nigel Westmaas is one the sons of David Westmass who performed the functions of Secretary to Premier Cheddi Jagan during the colonial era and later, as Secretary to Dr. Jagan as Opposition Leader.

David was a stalwart of the PPP. He was not a racist. His writings show his fight for free and fair elections, against the Burnham dictatorship, racism and justice for all. He worked at Freedom House where he assisted Dr Jagan with research papers and preparation of press releases. He helped with the creation of the Civil Liberties Action Council (CLAC) and the Guyana Peace Council (GPC). He was great with English grammar.

His son Nigel, gravitated to the Working People’s Alliance (WPA). He eventually immigrated to the USA.

By his commentary in the news outlet, Westmaas seemed more interested in exposing the racial and ideological undertones that are to be found in the peculiarities of Guyanese political culture.

In this regard, young Westmaas must say if he agrees with the WPA’s political line that apartheid, racial domination and discrimination is being practiced in Guyana by the PPP/C. In his ‘Opinion’, Westmaas makes a fundamental mistake by deliberately miscategorise the phenomenon of defecting or crossing the floor as ‘a show’ and as ‘theatre.’

We Guyanese have a moral obligation and responsibility to challenge the system to create a fairer and more just society for all Guyanese but we cannot accomplish this obligation and responsibility through rhetoric and hyperbole claiming that the PPP is; ‘busy putting on a show and that It’s the same political theatre.’ Better constructive criticisms and concrete participation in nation building. Characterizing the announcements of persons from the PNC endorsing President Ali, Westmaas concluded; ‘This isn’t about transformation. It’s a transaction of the most devious kind in a broken society.’

This is a flawed conclusion. By describing the phenomenon of crossing from one party to another as symptomatic of a ‘broken society’ Westmaas connects his understanding of the problem to some other idea or domain of life when in reality it is symptomatic of the nature of Guyanese politics and not of the ‘broken society’ which he conjured up just as any critic of the PPP would be prone to declare.

Probably because his party’s alliance with the PNC, Westmass chose to ignore the broken society, the PNC left behind and instead chose to pin the label on the PPP/C, conveniently overlooking the years of PNC misrule, a wrecked economy, a legacy of rigged elections, heavy outward migration and a flawed experimentations with socialism and Marxist ideology which led some of the defectors to become right opportunists/ deviationists, whilst the others were merely wedded to the popular and nationalist policies of the PPP of the colonial era and pressured through the use of fear, victimization and intimidation by the Burnham dictatorship to defect to the PNC.

Quoting from President Ali, Westmaas wrote; ‘Even President Ali has acknowledged, in a rare moment of candor last November that there was a “systemic cultural problem” in Guyana.’. I hasten to add that my interpretation of President Ali’s reference to a ‘systemic culture problem’ in Guyana should not be cast in derogatory terms rather, it should be understood in its contextual and peculiar significance.

Furthermore, Westmaas’ harping on the ‘systemic culture problem’ is a crude model for understanding the political phenomenon and begs the question; what if the defections were from the PPP to the PNC as was the case in the 1970’s? Would he have described that as a show and theatrics? In the circumstances, it seems to me that Westmaas over-simplified a political phenomenon that is well established in the world of politics.

In a society culturally and ethnically diverse as Guyana, the ‘systemic culture problem’ that the President may have referred to, must have been one peculiar to Guyana but certainly not one that would make the economy grind to a halt, making the country ‘uncreditworthy’ or to pull the country down.

In this regard, the politics of crossing over is obviously influenced by various considerations, such as greater political awareness and perhaps, personal interests and family pressures. Westmaas’s approach would confuse readers because he loses focus and does not address, nor speak to factors such as empathy, familiarity, inclusivity nor common interests when it comes to such highly publicized matters.

The recent spate of defections or floor-crossing or resignations was never designed nor destined to occur in this way at this time. And not because defections and floor crossing occurred in the 1970’s with defections from PPP to PNC while the PPP was in the political opposition, it follows that it is bound to happen in this way from PNC to PPP/C while the PNC is in the opposition. The political contexts under which such actions take place cannot be cast aside and replaced by mere sloganeering. That being said, nevertheless, the PPP has always maintained that political allegiances are not static and could change.

Westmaas’ article is obviously structured the way he thinks about politics. He did not take into consideration, at least at a conceptual level, that debates at the parliamentary or RDC levels for example, are exchanges where individuals take sides, and that evidence and facts revealed in such debates cannot be blind-sighted nor ignored because of wooden-headedness through no fault of government nor the PPP/C. Outside of the chamber, MPs chat and exchange private views with each other.

So here is how Westmaas concludes his commentary:

‘In a deeply plural society like Guyana, national unity can’t just mean putting different faces on the same political machine. It can’t be reduced to symbolic inclusion or temporary alliances built for election season. Unity must engage directly with inequality, mistrust, and past exclusion. Without that engagement, what’s called “unity” becomes little more than choreography, people standing together for the photo while pursuing very different goals behind the scenes.’

Ironically, while Westmaas choses to lecture readers on matters pertaining to unity, the WPA, party he supports, every day via its podcasts promotes disunity and an ideology that is totally unhelpful to reconciliation and nation unity.

And in case Westmaas is not aware, it might interest him to know that through its engagements at the grassroots levels, the PPP/C in and out of government has never stopped engaging the people directly. At the same time, through policy initiatives, the Ali administration does its level best to address manifestations of inequality, mistrust and exclusion. And it is precisely through these engagements that changes in political allegiances are manifesting themselves today.

History has taught us that no one person can do everything, but if we follow the Ethiopian proverb ‘When spiders unite, they can tie down a lion’, we Guyanese have a better chance of solving our problems together and creating a nation that lives up to its dreams of ‘One People, One Nation, One Destiny’ or if you wish, ‘One Guyana!’

Yours faithfully,

Clement J. Rohee

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• Clement J. Rohee, Demerara Waves, Irfaan Ali, Letters, Nigel Westmaas, PPP/C

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