Dear Editor,
I refer to Mr Eusi Kwayana’s letter (‘There was never any approach from the PPP to the WPA for a discussion on the post-election situation’ SN, December 15) and seek to clarify.
I never actually said that there were any post-election discussions between the PPP and WPA but these discussion did actually take place and the following were the circumstances.
Both parties along with Paul Tennassee’s Democratic Labour Movement (DLM) were the constituent members of the Patriotic Coalition for Democracy (PCD) which was formed after the rigging of the 1985 elections. This coalition broke up in 1991 or early 1992 for several reasons. The main one was the refusal of the WPA to support Cheddi Jagan as the presidential candidate for the PCD. Before the break-up Clive Thomas was identified as the prime ministerial candidate and Paul Tennassee as a potential deputy prime minister. If this was not formally agreed to, then it was the general view in the PPP that such would be the eventual electoral leadership of the PCD, if agreement could be reached on Cheddi Jagan as the presidential candidate.
After the break-up of the PCD the PPP approached the GUARD movement, formed the PPP/CIVIC and secured the agreement of Sam Hinds to be a PPP/C prime ministerial candidate. The Civic group replaced the WPA and DLM as allies of the PPP. The PPP/C and the WPA then became official political competitors, fielding separate lists of candidates and went their separate ways. Collaboration ceased.
After the PPP won the elections, Cheddi Jagan offered Clive Thomas the post of Economic Development Minister. The WPA has often portrayed this as a ‘personal’ issue between Cheddi and Clive so as to technically argue that there was no post-elections offer or discussion between the PPP and the WPA. This is to enable the latter to evade responsibility for what one leading member of the WPA described to me as an “historic” mistake. He was referring not only to the refusal by the WPA, yes the WPA, of the offer to Clive Thomas but the WPA’s earlier refusal to support Cheddi Jagan as the PCD’s presidential candidate.
But the facts do not support the interpretation that there was no offer or discussion. To portray the offer from the President of the country and leader of the PPP to a presidential candidate and a leader of the WPA as ‘personal’ is to stand the meaning of formality on its head. No such conversation or offer at any time or anywhere in the world could have been anything other than a formal offer from a representative of one group to the representative of another group.
The WPA not only recognized it as such but did not interpret it as an offer that was merely personal to Clive Thomas. That is why a delegation from the WPA met officials of the PPP to discuss the matter. I do not recall if Cheddi Jagan or Clive Thomas was at that meeting. I was not. The discussions were unsuccessful and it was the WPA which declined the offer. Many PPP leaders remember that meeting because Moses Bhagwan, a member of the WPA delegation, was reported to be particularly sharp, which was quite uncharacteristic of relations between the parties, even though these were going through severe strains at the time.
The PPP and the WPA were political competitors and had differences of approach. Therefore relations between them had to encounter difficulties. But it cannot be seriously argued that the PPP, at least while Cheddi Jagan was alive, did not make serious efforts to have a collaborative relationship.
I would readily concede that because the PPP held political office, it had the major duty to ensure that good relations with the WPA were maintained. As shown above, Cheddi Jagan tried but it was the WPA which did not reciprocate. Some additional efforts were thereafter made with the appointment of some WPA members to boards. This was not enough but what could the PPP do after the WPA’s rejection of Cheddi’s offer to Clive?
The WPA ought to cease dropping hints that it was sidelined by the PPP without acknowledging its own role in the events that have led to the current situation. Had it not been for the WPA’s positions in 1991 and 1992, both before and after the elections, and had its relations with the PPP been maintained, the political outcomes and political culture today could have been far more positive.
Yours faithfully,
Ralph Ramkarran
