A blazing “rum shop” ruckus has erupted between no less a person than His Excellency the President and his political bedfellow and one-time Science Advisor Navin Chandarpal and as the old saying goes mouth open, story jump out.
We are told by Chandarpal that the story being put about by the President that he was sacked because he was lazy and incompetent is an outright lie. The truth, Chandarpal says, is that he was sacked for disagreeing with the President and that the President told him so to his face. We know, of course, that the President is not a man to take public criticism lying down.
Then there is the President’s remark about Chandarpal’s proclivity for “rum shops” Navin declares that he has never been part of the “new (presumably PPP) elite” whose latter-day affluence puts them in a position to drink ‘up market’ these days.
Never one to back away from a good old-fashioned scrap, the President dubs Chandarpal is “bitter and vindictive.” Not so, Chandarpal shot back. “Every Guyanese knows who is the most vindictive of all!”
You have to wonder whether Mr. Jagdeo may not now have decided that with the end of his presidential tenure now a matter of months away, this is the time to remove the velvet glove and ‘have a go’ at those of his political colleagues who dislike his presidential style. You have to wonder too whether, by deliberately and somewhat distastefully inserting himself into the process of selecting his hoped-for successor, Mr. Jagdeo is not, in seeking to ensure that with talk of a third term now effectively dead and buried he remains an ‘item’ even after he becomes possibly the youngest ex-President anywhere in the world. But perhaps above everything else you have to wonder what more will get said and done given all the rumours that have been bandied about regarding the Jagdeo presidency.
This is not the first time that Mr. Jagdeo has ‘locked horns’ with one of his party colleagues. It is, however, the first time that the confrontation has sunk to a “rum shop” level. Chandarpal, who is by no means unpopular inside the PPP certainly appears sufficiently confident about the backing that he has to ‘take on’ Mr. Jagdeo whom, is must of course be borne in mind, still wields all of the powers vested in the presidency through the so-called Burnham constitution. Life is full of all kinds of ironies.
At this juncture few people would put money on Gail Teixeira’s expectation that the PPP will “behave in a disciplined manner and with decorum” as the Party considers its presidential nominee. The long knives have already been removed from their scabbards.
