Dear Editor,
Mr Ralph Ramkarran’s column which was published in Sunday Stabroek under the caption ‘The PPP, WPA and Clive Thomas’ is a welcome contribution to the debate on Dr Jagan’s withdrawal of the ministerial offer to Dr Clive Thomas, that was made after the declaration of the 1992 regional and general elections.
In his column Mr Ramkarran had gone further than any other contributor in this debate in conceding the possibility that Dr Roger Luncheon had indeed communicated Dr Jagan’s withdrawal of the ministerial offer to Clive Thomas. Mr Ramkarran in his column wrote, “Dr Luncheon may well have indicated that the offer to Professor Thomas was off the table”. He however continued, “But he would have done so after the WPA had indicated its position and Dr Jagan had decided not to pursue the matter”. I am not sure what Mr Ramkarran meant when he said, “after the WPA had indicated its position”. Is he referring to the negotiations between the WPA and the PPP which resulted in an agreement between the two parties on a regional and parliamentary accommodation? The details of that agreement were stated in my letter in Stabroek News of June 30, 2016 in response to one authored by Mr Manzoor Nadir. If this is what Mr Ramkarran is referring to, he has my agreement. However, the implications are obvious: I submit here that Dr Jagan, after having gotten the WPA’s support and his parliamentary arithmetic correct was, as I had stated in my response to Mr Nadir, “no longer interested in the ministerial offer to Dr Thomas. To put it another way, Dr Jagan, after having achieved the parliamentary comfort level he desired (via the regional and parliamentary agreement with the WPA) no longer had an interest in Dr Thomas as finance minister. His subsequent choice of Asgar Ally is not consistent with Mr Ramkarran’s claim that Dr Jagan feared that the WPA might have offered up another economist in its ranks whose economic vision for the country was dissimilar to that of Dr Jagan.
I wish at this point to address some issues raised by Mr Ramkarran relative to the Patriotic Coalition for Democracy (PCD) negotiations. I offer my views on these matters from my vantage point as a member of the WPA’s delegation to the PCD. I want to say at the outset that I am in full agreement with Mr Ramkarran that in this debate, context is an important element for clarity. It is therefore in my quest to ensure clarity on these matters that I respond to Mr Ramkarran’s version of events. In his column Mr Ramkarran wrote, “Dr Jagan’s offer of Dr Roger Luncheon as the PPP’s presidential candidate was rejected”. He continued, “The PPP concluded that these groups essentially wanted the PPP to concede the presidency, which it was not prepared to do.” This formulation by Mr Ramkarran is consistent with the lie promoted at public meetings by Dr Jagan during the elections campaign, that in the PCD negotiations he put forward Dr Luncheon as the PCD presidential candidate and it was rejected. This never happened. I have publicly challenged Dr Jagan on this matter several times when he was alive and he never responded. Never, not once did Dr Jagan attempt to refute my claim.
Let me for the benefit of younger readers put the issue in perspective. At a certain point in the PCD negotiations Dr Jagan told us that he held a meeting with some prominent citizens who objected to his candidacy for president, on the grounds that “he is Indian and communist”. In response he claimed to have put forward Roger Luncheon as the presidential candidate and he was told that Luncheon “is black but red”, meaning that he is African but communist. This was what was communicated to the meeting by Dr Jagan. I repeat, at no time in the PCD negotiations did the PPP put forward any person other than Dr Jagan for President.
The next issue I wish to clarify is the erroneous contention that the WPA rejected Dr Jagan’s offer of the ministerial position to Dr Thomas. What WPA did was to write Dr Jagan for clarification on whether the offer was to the WPA as a party or to Dr Thomas in his personal capacity. Mr Ramkarran’s contention is that, “The WPA declined the offer on the ground that protocol dictated that Jagan must make the offer to the WPA”. I am not splitting hairs. Mr Ramkarran is an outstanding lawyer and an experienced politician and he is aware of the difference between the two positions stated. Once again for the benefit of the younger generation, I will point out that when the talks between the two parties on the regional and parliamentary accommodation began the WPA informed the PPP negotiators that we were separating the regional and parliamentary issue from the ministerial offer pending the PPP’s clarification. The record will show that the PPP at no time replied to the WPA letter.
In summarizing, let me make the following points:
(1) I don’t share Mr Ramkarran’s view that the PPP throughout the PCD negotiations and the post 1992 elections negotiations acted in good faith and was at all time interested in unity. From the start of the PCD talks the PPP had two non-negotiable positions: (a) Jagan must be the presidential candidate (b) the PPP must dominate the slate. In spite of this fact I am willing to concede that in the early stages of the negotiations the PPP was committed to reaching an agreement on its terms.
(2) The situation changed after Dr Jagan returned from a meeting with officials of the US State Department; on his return Dr Jagan reported to the PCD statutory meeting that he was well received by the State Department, but he gave no details. However, he could not contain his emotions. His facial expression revealed it all. He returned from that meeting with the US State Department a happy man – the ideological problematic (to use a DLM term) was removed. From this point onwards Dr Jagan stopped attending PCD meetings, and Moses Nagamootoo replaced him as the PPP’s main negotiator. The PPP and Dr Jagan had no more interest in a PCD agreement to contest the elections. It soon became clear that Mr Nagamootoo’s mandate was to ensure that no agreement was reached. Every time he came to the negotiations he hardened his and the PPP’s position on previous concessions. This new approach by the PPP in my view was influenced by the fact that the US had informed Jagan that they had no issues with his presidential run. I now ask Mr Ramkarran if the State Department meeting was reported and discussed at the PPP executive and if yes, what was reported.
(3) After the PCD talks were deadlocked it was agreed to have a break in the talks, and to allow parties to reassess their positions after having bilateral discussions. It was also agreed that at the end of the break period the talks will resume and that each party at the first statutory meeting will report on their position to facilitate the new round of negotiations. I wish to reiterate that I was the WPA’s representative at the statutory meetings and when we met I informed the meeting of my instructions from the WPA executive, that I should not state the party’s position before the PPP first stated theirs. No one objected. The DLM stated their position; it was now the PPP’s turn to state their position. Ms Gail Teixeira, who represented the PPP, refused to state her party’s position and insisted that I reveal the WPA position. We both held our ground and as a result the meeting was adjourned. Before we left the room, I announced that the WPA had decided to accept Dr Jagan as presidential candidate.
(4) The PPP after learning of the WPA’s new position accepting Dr Jagan candidacy, had a chance to achieve unity in a new round of PCD negotiations, but showed no interest in doing so. After another statutory meeting while I was leaving Freedom House Dr Jagan called me aside and asked that I tell the WPA that the PPP has decided to run with Mr Samuel Hinds from the Guard movement. I conveyed Jagan’s message to the WPA executive and the general view was that Jagan was playing games.
In closing I appreciate Mr Ralph Ramkarran’s attempt to be objective in the debate, but he is at a disadvantage since he did not personally take part in the negotiations. What he is putting forward is what he was told in the PPP executive. The dilemma he is faced with is to what extent the reports he received were accurate. I hope that the restating of my position on these matters, which I have been doing over the years at different times in public polemics, would assist in clarifying for Mr Ramkarran the truth in these matters.
Yours faithfully,
Tacuma Ogunseye
