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July 19, 2002: The editor's deadline has caused to write this column before the conclusion of the PPP's Port Morant congress. I am therefore in no position to determine who is in the leadership. Based on what I have heard, I think Mrs. Jagan has not sought re-election to the Central Committee. I heard that she didn't go up to the gathering because she is ill and has been advised not to perambulate the perimeters of Guyana. On this basis, I assumed that she didn't seek nomination. This is not sound speculation because she could have been nominated in her absence. If I know Mrs. Jagan well, I would say that she sought re-election. Why?
Mrs. Jagan helped to form the PAC in the forties which became the PPP in the fifties. She has nurtured some of the people in the next generation after the exodus of PPP leaders in the seventies. Out of this comes the psychology of possession. All the data I have gathered, PPP profiles I have studied, PPP people I have befriended, and all the research materials I have perused have led me to a gargantuan and pellucidly clear conclusion Mrs. Jagan treats the PPP as a personal possession. This is the nature of the woman. Mrs. Jagan isn't going to let go easily. I say this without malice or mischief because I sincerely believe my perception is correct.
So it doesn't matter if she is out of or back in the central committee, once Mrs. Jagan has energy and time, she is going to demand policy implementation from the PPP's executive committee and by extension the cabinet, as she did last month with Dr. James Rose as her choice for UG's vice-chancellorship. For all the nonsensical talk about the autonomy of the Civic component, nobody defies the remaining party founder, nobody dare to.
It is a sad affair. And the reasons are even sadder. It is outside the scope of a newspaper column to offer biographical sketches of this towering and long-serving Guyanese personality, but some brief attempts are in order. Maybe I will elaborate on these short notes in future articles. Mrs. Jagan lives in a time zone. She started out her career in the forties and from then until the latter part of the eighties, has seen tremendous hurt and damage done to the PPP. The internalization of these traumas has formed fixed ideological conceptualizations. When these perceptions are translated into action, the results are both negative and positive but in Mrs. Jagan's case the negatives outweigh the right decisions. This is quite easy to see.
Mrs. Jagan is of the belief that the PPP is a great party, bore terrible sufferings for Guyana, and freed Guyana from colonialism and post-colonial authoritarianism. In this mental configuration, a person cannot be right, cannot have a keen mind, and cannot do good for the PPP and/or Guyana, if they are not with the PPP. PPP closeness, PPP likeness, PPP membership are the criteria Mrs. Jagan uses to assess people's political culture and their suitability for important jobs. When a party is in power and its leader behaves like this, trouble is coming, and trouble has come to Guyana under her leadership, and more trouble will come if Mrs. Jagan continues on her mental road map.
No one can dispute this analysis of mine because I am part of the evidence, yes me. I have a mountain of information on how Mrs. Jagan has treated close friends, not so distant friends and people I know well and respect. But I know about her attitudinal structure because I have been a victim of it. No matter how revolutionary, moral , brave, and patriotic you are, you are going to evoke a harsh response from Mrs. Jagan if you criticise her, her party and the government. This is the opposite of her late husband's personality which causes you to reflect on how much she learnt from Cheddi. She is an inflexible woman, and will hold whatever she holds against you for a very, very long time. Because of her Freudian contempt for those who are not in league with the PPP, she will not relate to you unless you ask her forgiveness. I remember, a big PPP leader telling me that Mrs. Jagan, while she was president, had mellowed and that she was prepared to allow PPP detractors to be employed with the state in good positions once they admit the wrongs they did to the PPP. He made this comment in relation to a very prominent personality who was part of the broad anti-dictatorship movement in the seventies and eighties and who had now hang up his gloves and had applied for an important public sector job.
The dangerous thing about Mrs. Jagan's outlook is that history does not support it. It cannot be defended even with the most brilliant arguments. First, it is true that the PPP is a great party. What is true is that Guyana has had other great parties. Secondly, it is true that the PPP has endured terrible wrongs. But the evidence shows other parties suffered too. This is where Mrs. Jagan is on unsound ground. There is a theory that says more none PPP people were hurt in fighting the post-colonial dictatorship in Guyana than PPP leaders. Some non-PPP leaders lost their lives while you can count on your fingers the PPP leaders that got even a rifle butt in the arse. Thirdly, a large hole exists in Mrs. Jagan's institutional memory. The PPP made terrible mistakes that had tremendous consequences for Guyana. So the picture is far from angelic. One can name a few: (1) the persistence of a communist program at the wrong time which caused the loss of power and the persistence of it which caused the continued shutting out of power, (2) an alliance with Burnham in 1976 and attempts with the same Burnham at power-sharing in 1985, (3) the refusal to include non-PPP parties after 1992 which could have changed the landscape forever much to the happiness of the people of this land.
There are still some good people left in the PPP. They can still see this country through good times. Bharrat Jagdeo is one of them. He does not suffer from the scars of the sixties and seventies. He doesn't understand the agony and mistakes of that era so he is not shackled by institutional memory. But these good leaders can only do good if they are freed from the chains of people like Mrs. Jagan who is in her eighties and whose time has long gone. I wish Mrs. Jagan a speedy recover and a most peaceful retirement.