The year 2007 is not ending very well for President Jagdeo. If it wasn’t enough that the Venezuelans invaded the Cuyuni, the government found itself begging for a shipment of fuel from the perpetrators of the aggression. Then there was GPL, which has been visiting frequent black-outs on the Demerara electricity consumers, and caused the Berbician ones at one point to wonder if some mischievous time lord had not carried them back to pre-electrical days. And Berbice, it must be remembered, is the heartland of the ruling party. But this time the President couldn’t do his deus ex machina act at which he has become so adept; this time he was forced to relay the unseasonable news that we cannot necessarily expect that when we put on the switches at Christmas, our rooms will light up, our TVs will flicker into action, or our fridges will keep the goodies cold.
And of course the President has had some personnel problems to occupy his attention as well, more especially the matter of two trigger-happy parliamentarians, one of whom is a senior minister of government. However, it seems the last-named gentleman at least has caused his boss less anguish than he should have done, since he is being allowed to continue in office as if nothing had happened. It can only be concluded that in this country at least, brawling inside a bar, assaulting a teenager and firing a gun in the air without cause, is not sufficient to put a dent in anyone’s political career. The head of state did get stroppy, of course, with the Chairman of the GPL Board and the head of the Guyana Energy Authority, although how much specific responsibility they bear for what has happened in the power sector is yet to emerge.
But that was not the end of the head of state’s catalogue of woes for the season. In addition to the Venezuelans, GPL and Messrs Lall and Atkinson giving the President pause for thought, there was also an issue which had a more personal tincture. On Wednesday First Lady Varshnie Singh at a press conference said that when she returned to Guyana on November 18, she found that she no longer had access to a state vehicle, and had been forced to resort to taxis and buses. She appealed to the public for a vehicle she could borrow to facilitate her work with the Kids First Fund. One might have thought that this information out in the public arena might have caused the head of state a smidgeon of embarrassment. If he was embarrassed, however, he gave no outward sign of it. In sonorous tones he told the media on Thursday that the First Lady was now a private citizen, and the use of a state vehicle for an NGO could not be authorized.
He went on to tell the reporters that he too would be a private citizen one day, and might have to use taxis. One doubts it. Apart from anything else, he will be the beneficiary of a presidential pension, and no doubt various other concessions due to a former head of state. Be that as it may, the first question which came to everyone’s mind was, are Mr and Mrs Jagdeo now divorced, and the public has not been informed? If they are not yet divorced, but only separated, technically speaking Ms Singh (as she now prefers to be called) is still the First Lady and should still qualify for a state vehicle. If she chooses to use that vehicle for her charity work, that is entirely her affair.
As a matter of fact, when the divorce comes through, as a former First Lady, she should still qualify for a vehicle. In the case of the widows of former presidents, the concessions they receive continue as long as they do not remarry, and there is no reason why that principle could not be applied in this case. It is true that we have never been in a position before where a president and his wife divorced while the former was still in office, but since the situation has now arisen, or more probably will shortly arise, it seems sensible to extend existing rules to the situation.
What the President does not seem to have recognized is that his over-zealous application of what he regards as the principles to the case, merely makes him appear petty. The First Lady is enormously well liked among all groups, and her work for children requiring overseas treatment greatly admired. It might be observed in passing that whatever use her vehicle is being put to now, one cannot think that it is more important than the purpose for which she was mostly utilizing it. In terms of public perception, therefore, government actions which appear to be designed to stymie her work (even if they are not actually intended to do so) will simply make her an object of sympathy, and by extension damage her (ex-)husband’s image.
At a personal level too, no one wants to see the First Lady (or former First Lady) publicly humiliated or insulted; if it is acceptable to treat a first lady (or former first lady), who has always behaved with dignity, with apparent contempt, it is a sign the office of the president itself is not owed respect, because her position comes about because of his. Clearly the President has not seen the matter in a contempt light; as said above, he simply feels he is applying the rules. However, in a situation where the power relations are very unequal, the powerful side of the equation should not make the mistake of appearing to belittle the weaker party, even although that is not at all what he has in mind. If the image is conveyed that the First Lady can be treated with disrespect, there is the possibility that faulty extrapolations might be made about how women in general are viewed at the highest levels of government.
There is very little that the head of state or anyone else can do about the electricity situation in the short term, while the Venezuelan controversy is not going to evaporate in the immediate future either. It certainly looks as if the President has every intention of trying to brazen out the furore surrounding Mr Kellawan Lall’s actions, which may yet come back to haunt him, but does he really need to add the First Lady to his long list of end-of-year problems? In the spirit of the season the First Lady should get her car back before some private citizen comes forward to lend her a vehicle to the embarrassment not just of the President and the government, but also, it might be added, the nation as a whole.
