A wake last Wednesday for the late Opposition Leader and PNCR Leader Robert Corbin produced an extraordinary outpouring from the PPP General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo that will both confuse his party’s supporters and underline the anxieties linked to the rise of We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) which relegated the ruling party’s traditional bête noire to third place in last year’s elections.
Mr Jagdeo spoke effusively of Mr Corbin’s loyalty to the PNCR. “Robert Corbin defended his party fiercely in every engagement we had. He always defended his party, was the strongest advocate for the People’s National Congress. But he had a bigger vision for the country, and he understood government”.
Mr Jagdeo then went on to deliver the pièce de résistance.
“Unless our parties, these two parties change today, the era of binary thinking of old is long gone. We will face extinction. We will face extinction,” he declared.
The PPP faithful, those who have recently defected to it for blandishments and the legions of its paid online trolls would be puzzled. The PPP facing extinction? Having returned to office just a year ago, a handsome majority in Parliament, an ebullient President determined not to involve the opposition and civil society in important decisions and billions of US$ pouring into the coffers each year for it spend as it pleases is facing extinction?
Mr Jagdeo then went on to say that Mr Corbin had recognised the damage caused by decades of racial division, mistrust and pressure to conform to party positions. He described him as willing to take political risks to overcome those barriers. It is quite a pity then that when they both occupied the positions of President and Opposition Leader, respectively, they failed to deliver on what could have possibly helped them to avoid extinction.
Mr Jagdeo then gave his own account of failed attempts between himself and Mr Corbin to reach some form of accommodation. He then referred to constitutional changes made in 2001 and maintained that they had created extensive opportunities for inclusion. Nevertheless, he said mistrust had obstructed the implementation of parliamentary arrangements which could have produced a form of legislative power-sharing.
“If we were to bring the same mistrust that harmed us from accomplishing things at the legislative level into the executive at the cabinet, we would have had a paralysis,” he said.
While any genuine attempt among political parties to reach concordats that can reduce tensions in society, increase co-operation in Parliament, mitigate hyperpartisanship and build consensus on the future of the country in the oil and gas economy would be welcome, attempts at hoodwinking should be called out for what they are.
Mr Jagdeo stands out as the figure in the PPP firmament with the greatest contribution to the latter-day divisions facing the country. It was clear while he was President that Mr Jagdeo had only one opponent he worried about: Desmond Hoyte. With his ability to mobilise street action – much feared by the PPP – Mr Hoyte was the only person who could elicit movement from the PPP. After Mr Hoyte’s passing in 2002 and the failure of Mr Corbin to effectively mobilise the opposition, Mr Jagdeo shelved any hint at all of movement towards shared or inclusive government though it was never clear in either political camp what form this would take.
At a famous event at State House in February, 2003, Mr Jagdeo unveiled a ‘Building Trust and Confidence’ declaration which stated: “The PPP/C proposes the implementation of all the constitutional reforms as an immediate measure to building trust and to further enhance inclusive governance. In this regard, the parties will be required to collaborate on: the appointment of the…(constitutional) Commissions…The PPP/C will expand on these efforts by encouraging broader co-operation by all forces in the society involved in public affairs but particularly the political parties…In an environment created by deepening trust and confidence, further arrangements for inclusive governance can result after consultation with our constituents and the electorate.”
That event was the essential goodbye to any prospect of deeper cooperation between the PPP and the PNCR. Mr Jagdeo was President from 1999 to 2011 and General Secretary of the PPP from 2017 to the present. How is it that he has failed to reach this deeper understanding with the opposition over the entire period given the enormous powers he aggrandized? The simple answer is that the PPP and its leading lights had decided despite the historic protestations of Cheddi Jagan that it would be winner take all.
This is why there was no evident attempt throughout the Jagdeo presidency to achieve what was lamented at Mr Corbin’s wake. The need for trust, as deployed by the PPP in 2003, became a shibboleth. This is why there was no attempt by the PPP during its 2011-15 term in office for greater political co-operation when it did not have a majority in Parliament. It had the option of pursuing an alliance in Parliament with either the PNCR/APNU or the Alliance For Change to ensure a working majority. Neither Mr Jagdeo as the immediate past President – nor President Ramotar – showed any interest in this, preferring to go to an early election where the PPP/C suffered a historic defeat at the hands of APNU and the AFC which had formed a groundbreaking coalition. Both APNU and the AFC were prepared to take the risk in 2015 with or without trust.
Admittedly with the attempt to rig elections in 2020 in its favour, APNU could not be considered a reliable partner and it was the PPP which set out to punish it by pursuing a policy to ostracize it and by non-cooperation with people and civil society groups who it believed did not condemn the rigging. At the same time it set about enticing PNCR/APNU people into its camp perhaps as its idea of inclusive governance.
Indeed, even in Parliament there was no prospect of functional co-operation after 2020. The PPP/C government altered the quorum rule for the most important parliamentary committee, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) so that the governing side could cynically decide if and when meetings should be held. Such was the commitment to inclusiveness that Mr Jagdeo now bewails. The then supposedly frustrated PAC Chairman, Jermaine Figueira has since waltzed away from PNCR/APNU into the PPP camp.
It is patent to all political watchers that it is the rise of WIN and its dismantling of PNCR support which has Mr Jagdeo and others in the PPP worried. If the PPP/C respects democratic tenets why then has President Ali refused to engage with the Opposition Leader? Despite the fact that he faces extradition to the US on serious indictments, the Guyana Constitution – the Supreme Law of the land – recognises Mr Mohamed as the Opposition Leader.
Mr Jagdeo’s outpouring now begs the question. Doesn’t the need for the healing of political divisions also extend to WIN which won 25% of the vote a year ago or is Mr Jagdeo only interested in maintaining the duopoly which has presided over 60 years of elections rigging, corruption, conflict, immiserisation, insecurity and wholesale giving away of the country’s assets for a song as with ExxonMobil?
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