Having waited an eternity – and, frankly, we are still waiting – for Donald Ramotar to step out from behind Mr. Jagdeo’s shadow and tell the nation just why he should have his office re-sited from Robb Street to New Garden Street, the PPP/C’s presidential candidate has finally said something the might have caught the nation’s attention. “I value democracy greatly” is what he said, or at least that is what he is purported to have said in a recent interview with a certain newspaper recently.
Donald values democracy! Whew! What a campaign opener for the PPP’s veteran gatekeeper. Not only does he value democracy he values it “greatly.” Donald “understands the importance of democracy and development” and that is why he thinks he is “the most suitable candidate” for Guyana’s presidency.
Now let’s take a step back, Mr. Presidential candidate. We know that much of what is being said by the political parties and their presidential candidates in this the most lacklustre elections campaign season in the nation’s history has not been taken seriously by the Guyanese people; but did you really expect that one to slide past us without comment? Come again, Donald! We know that we have become accustomed to hearing politicians say just about anything to garner those X’s on the ballot papers but even in this ‘silly season’ there is surely a limit to what people will believe.
Remember the Cold War, Donald? Remember the PPP’s easier to stop tomorrow than to stop communism pronouncement? You should remember, Donald! You were right there, Donald, in the bosom of the communist Tsunami that so badly frightened the United States and caused the CIA to swing into action, employing all sorts of ‘tricks’ and ‘dodges’ to roll back the revolutionaries in the hemisphere.
You were there in those days, Mr. Ramotar, helping to put together those PPP pronouncements about the glories of an impending communist utopia. You were right there in the belly of the PPP “fighting (as the newspaper put it) against oppression and dictatorship. But in those days, Donald, that which you refer to as “oppression and dictatorship” was what the Americans were holding forth as DEMOCRACY.
In fairness, Donald, in those days, neither you nor your party nor the CIA, for that matter, would have recognized DEMOCRACY if it were to drop on your heads. The CIA was preoccupied with keeping communism at bay and you and your party were running with another kind of DICTATORSHIP, THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT. Dictatorship is dictatorship, Donald………whether it be from behind the barrel of a gun as was manifested by those military regimes in Latin America for so many decades or through some Orwellian sleight of hand that imposed a Communist Party as the supreme authority as the supreme authority and the herding of ‘the proletariat’ into a trance-like compliance. Whatever else that may be, Donald, that’s not democracy; and that’s what you have been a part of for decades. Some people might even say that here in Guyana you are probably the last Cold Warrior left standing.
So for heaven’s sake Donald………..a lot that is unflattering is already being said about the manner in which your campaign is unfolding. Let’s hear more about how you will create jobs and cut back on corruption and make us safer in our home and transform our decrepit education system; and let’s talk about protecting the gold miners from the bandits and fixing roads and getting hydropower. But for God’s sake, Donald. Let’s stop this valuing democracy nonsense! It’s not the kind of talk that is befitting the General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party.
