Dear Editor,
Ralph Ramkarran writes, ‘Hall you ass’ in his latest column in SN and missive in Conversation Tree, in relation to Khemraj Ramjattan, AFC Leader, telling off Housing Minister Irfaan Ali.
He states that Mr Ramjattan is a 10% politician. Isn’t coming from one of three political parties in Guyana, with a pronounced multiracial commitment, a significant political development?
Being a former Speaker shouldn’t Mr Ramkarran be more respectful of any small political parliamentary representation in the same jurisdiction?
What is an amicable personality such as Ralph Ramkarran so envious about, politically or personally?
This ten per cent thing is not his first demeaning reference to the AFC in recent months. Mr Ramkarran in his bewitching, envious manner, loaded with ulterior motive, has questioned the AFC’s ability to maintain its current parliamentary strength at the next general election.
He should question the PPP General Secretary’s reference to its mass base and its supposed formulation of a left front to contest the next general election. There is massive empirical evidence on public display daily in Guyana to refute the GS’s prognosis.
Isn’t the AFC (10% party) on the verge of winning a significantly larger percentage of the votes in the 2016 general election? How many ten per cent (or smaller) parties have gone on to win national power historically, globally?
Minister Irfaan Ali the day before on the giveaway of front lands from Eccles to Providence, invited Mr Ramjattan by e-mail to attend his press conference the next day. About an hour later, Mr Ali’s secretary called via telephone to ask if Mr Ramjattan would be attending the minister’s press conference, and Mr Ramjattan told her he had already responded. She asked what the response was and it was then that he made his now infamous retort. She laughed and said she would convey the message.
Mr Ali then on the evening news made this public. It has backfired and the term has gained so much currency that even the elitist Ralph Ramkarran has to do an article on it!
Guyanese! 10 per cent is always better than 0 per cent!
Mr Ramkarran should go and form a political party if he has fundamental differences with his former Marxist-Leninist PPP, just as Mr Ramjattan did, with others. He will not be able to make the first step. All he could do is make a fanciful call for a consensus candidate thinking that he is the eligible one.
That is the measure of Mr Ramjattan. He could successfully form one and at only the second attempt fracture the PPP into a minority government. And if it was not for Burnham and the PNC changing the constitution in 1980, Ramjattan with his 10 per cent could easily have caused the PPP to be back in the opposition in 2011. That is the value of 10 per cent. And from now on it will haunt the PPP.
Yours faithfully,
Lionel Peters
