Dear Editor,
I found perplexing the reason given by Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bharrat Jagdeo, for not agreeing to President Granger’s request for the PPP/C to participate in the work of the proposed bipartisan sector committees. Mr Jagdeo is reported to have said that because the Granger led government is still in election mode he and his party had only agreed to support the establishment of the Border Committee.
Stabroek News (SN) in an article in its online edition, of September 3, 2015, reported, ‘Jagdeo says yes to border committee, others on hold.’ The article went on to quote Jagdeo as saying “….While the government is still in campaign mode the government should take a few months to complete the plethora of forensic audits that they have undertaken and base on those findings the committees can be organized.” I am not sure if the opposition leader is quoted accurately. But if he was, was he saying that the PPP/C was only prepared to consider participating in the other committees only if the results of the audits represented positions that were favourable to the PPP/C? That, notwithstanding, I wish to ask Mr Jagdeo if the PPP/C is out of the election mode? If this is so one is hard pressed to see any evidence of this.
SN in the article of September 3 continued: he Jagdeo, “… was ‘reluctant’ to take part in any committee that propagates one ideal while parallel to that the government was making claims that there was rampant corruption under the former administration”. If this is not a statement indicative of a party that is in election mode I wonder what is? It is the duty of any new government, which, (1) while it was in opposition had expressed concerns over rampant corruption that was taking place under its predecessor, to set in motion the mechanisms to weed it out; and (2) to seek accountability of the former regime when the reins of government are passed to it.
The opposition leader is again seen in electioneering mode when he is reported to have said “… We can’t talk about social cohesion when large amounts of people are losing their jobs and they [government] are not giving credible information why they are losing their jobs except in our view because of their race or political affiliation”. I wish to take this opportunity to remind Mr Jagdeo of the speed and the magnitude of the purge of PNCR functionaries and supporters from state employment by the PPP/C after it came to power in 1992. In the event that his memory only conveniently recalls certain events let me again remind him that following the PPP’s viciousness in their haste to dismiss Africans from responsible positions including positions within the diplomatic service, there was a plethora of court actions for wrongful dismissal brought by a number of those aggrieved persons against the PPP government of which he was a part. Given the PPP/C’s record on this matter the Opposition Leader is on a slippery slope of his party’s making. Even Dr Roger Luncheon recognized this fact, when in a post-election interview he was asked about the PPP/C’s dismissal of Africans post 1992 elections and he responded by saying that what happened in the past 23 years should be forgotten and we should move forward. Mr Jagdeo’s and the PPP/C’s claims about racial and political discrimination against party supporters is nothing but convenient party propaganda.
In fact any objective examination of the present government policy will reveal that the APNU+AFC government has been slow in replacing PPP/C political appointees. There is growing public concern that too many officials of the previous government are still in sensitive positions in the state, and this reality represents a threat that can be used to undermine the new government’s policies. I am against “political witch-hunting” but I am yet to see signs of this practice by the present regime.
In my opinion the PPP/C is still in election mode, it has not shifted gear. The party’s entry into the parliament is primarily to occupy the political space it earned at the elections and for their MPs to earn an income. The party is in shambles having lost power which it was not prepared for; it is now forced to struggle both in and out of parliament. When it held political power the PPP/C was critical of the opposition efforts at constructive criticism, now that they are in the opposition their efforts have been conveniently baptized as legitimate revolutionary work. It is clear that the PPP/C has set itself the goal of undermining the APNU+AFC government and has adopted several measures to do so. The party has been working overtly and covertly through its various agents. The hot and cold approach of the PPP/C leadership to important national issues like the establishing of the committees raised by President Granger in talks with the Opposition Leader should not become a political football for cheap partisan political gains.
Yours faithfully,
Tacuma Ogunseye
