What exactly political advisors to the President do is a bit of a mystery – at least in this country. One expects that whoever occupies the Office of the President would have by virtue of his/her position absorbed enough in this heavily politicized milieu to adequately advise himself or herself. In the main the position of political advisor has been a sinecure. For much of his tenure, President Jagdeo had been advised by Mr Kellawan Lall who was later appointed to the Ministry of Local Government and one got the clear impression that the advisor position was simply meant to give a job away and to secure a greater role for Freedom House at OP. It is unclear who has been providing political advice to the president since the appointment of Mr Lall but it seems that whoever was dispensing has been unceremoniously booted from the position as OP has hurriedly recruited none other than the recently minted PPP/C presidential candidate, Mr Donald Ramotar.
This hiring falls into the category of one of the most perverse and vulgar acts by the PPP/C in its 19-year-long tenure. Unfortunately it is unmistakably clear to all and sundry that the government – or more precisely President Jagdeo – is beyond being shamed by any misstep.
It has to be deduced that one of the real reasons why this appointment was made was to provide a semblance of cover from the evident abuse of state resources as manifested in the presence of Mr Ramotar in President Jagdeo’s entourage at a string of events over the last two weeks where he was the quintessential candidate shaking hands with broad smiles and handing over things.
If that was part of the rationale for Mr Ramotar’s recruitment to OP then it fails to even make it out of the starting blocks. No political advisor to the president is expected to be foot to foot with the President in campaign mode. The said advisor is more likely to stand inconspicuously in the background making mental notes and calculations. Moreover, no citizen, no matter how intellectually challenged will see anything else in this appointment but an intention to favour Mr Ramotar’s candidacy over the others through the use of state resources.
This preferment of Mr Ramotar by the Office of the President serves as an early test of his character. Just having been elevated to the position of presidential candidate for the PPP/C at the general elections he has now relegated himself to being the political advisor to a 12-year president who is just months away from leaving office. Do these events calibrate sensibly, Mr Ramotar? Surely not. One would have thought that Mr Ramotar would have wanted to put reasonable and sensible distance between his campaign and what currently transpires at the Office of the President. Wouldn’t Mr Ramotar be hard-pressed to find time to devote to his advisory position considering the burdensome demands of a general election campaign? Or is it the case that Mr Ramotar will be providing advice to the President which would end up favouring his political campaign? What special attributes have suddenly matured in Mr Ramotar that now makes him eminently suitable for the post of presidential advisor? When better sense prevails one expects that Mr Ramotar will renounce this position of presidential advisor and declare that he has not taken any pay for it.
Following his inclusion in official trips abroad, Stabroek News had questioned the propriety of Mr Ramotar’s presence and the media had been greeted with the puerile defence that he was the General Secretary of the ruling party and therefore for policy and other reasons it was appropriate that he be included. In September last year, Mr Ramotar himself defended his inclusion on cabinet outreaches and state visits overseas by saying the party’s fate is tied to the activities of the government.
There is no denying that the party is intrinsically tied to the government but considering the sensitivities about party paramountcy and the known history of the abuse of state resources by political parties it behoved Mr Ramotar, if he is interested in running a campaign that is transparent and principled, to make adequate provision for his participation in these events to be funded by Freedom House. So if Mr Ramotar ended up in Bartica in the company of President Jagdeo his transportation should be funded by his party. There should be no use of state facilities to bolster Mr Ramotar’s standing.
In the absence of campaign financing reform which the government shunted aside in Parliament last week, can Mr Ramotar and Freedom House elevate the political culture by ensuring that the activities attributable to the party’s campaign are financed by the party and not President Jagdeo’s government? The perfect place to start would be last week’s foray into New York at the Tobago Club. Was Mr Ramotar’s ticket to New York and expenses during his stay paid for by the PPP or did the Guyanese taxpayer foot the bill? Now that he has been formally anointed as the candidate he must begin to answer these questions.
Two other issues stand out glaringly. The first is that Mr Ramotar and President Jagdeo are campaigning everywhere together. It is a clear signal that the party and President Jagdeo recognize that in Mr Ramotar the PPP is fielding a candidate with very little public profile who will be vulnerable in parts of the country where the ruling party isn’t strong. With no Jagan around to pull in the masses that task is left to President Jagdeo. This makes Mr Ramotar even more indebted to President Jagdeo and the campaign is barely getting underway. How will this debt be made good? Does the electorate have to be worried about who will be the power behind the throne if Mr Ramotar wins the elections?
Secondly and more importantly, the accommodation of Mr Ramotar on these presidential visits here and overseas creates an unfair electoral playing field. He has the advantage of sponsorship and access to resources that the other parties can only dream about. This creates an unfair playing field among presidential candidates and immediately raises the concern that the process leading to general elections would be stacked in favour of Mr Ramotar. That is hardly something that his party should want to be associated with considering its historic quest for free and fair elections. Or has there been a radical shift in its thinking?
