Ramotar rises

Freedom House

Long before Donald Ramotar was eventually chosen by the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) to be its presidential candidate at the 2011 general elections, there was talk that a way was being sought to have Bharrat Jagdeo circumvent the constitutional provision which he himself had signed into law in order to have a third presidential term. If the third term gambit was eventually publicly dismissed by Jagdeo himself, sources close to the ruling party had earlier confirmed that an initiative had indeed been taken to try to keep Jagdeo in office.

The reasons were not too difficult to discern. The death of President Cheddi Jagan, the founding leader of the PPP who, even in death, remains an icon to the party’s members and supporters, had resulted in the altogether unintended inheritance of the presidency by Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, whose constitutional entitlement to the post did little to quell the political ripples resulting from the ascendancy to the highest office in the land by a non-member of the ruling? Mr. Hinds’ tenure which lasted from March to December 1997 was a largely uneventful one, the presidency during his