THE promises to the electorate, from Forbes Burnham right down to Moses Nagamootoo and David Granger, have been numerous and impactful to the gullible. But gauge the rhetoric from the delivery and then one could comprehend the contention of President Donald Ramotar, who responded to Granger’s claims at the Guyana Manufacturing & Services Association (GMSA) dinner last Tuesday with disdain and rank disbelief.“The promises of Mr David Granger on the sugar sector and the Amaila Falls Hydropower project represent a transparent electioneering gimmick that I am confident (they) will not fool the Guyanese people,” President Ramotar said dismissively of Granger’s tall claims on reforming the energy and consequently the manufacturing sectors.
As a member of the leadership of the original PPP, Burnham was privy to all Dr Cheddi Jagan’s visions for the future of Guyana and how his visions could be nurtured and fructify in a peaceful, progressive and prosperous Guyana: But implementation proved another matter.
So after Burnham conspired with his collaborators in the UK and the USA to wrest the reins of power from Dr. Jagan and put him in then British Guiana’s driving seat in government, they could not infuse the cranial wherewithal to effectively implement those plans Dr. Jagan had drafted for national development.
Added to that was the absolute lack of a moral compass and the greed and egoism of Burnham and successive PNC leaders and the country, instead of developing its immense potential for the benefit of the citizens, plunged this nation into a subterranean socio-economic abyss.
Betrayal of Dr. Jagan and the nation by political opportunists whose only agendas are self-aggrandisement and self-enrichment has been a recurring theme throughout our history; and what is a worse betrayal of the people than stagnating and inhibiting their socio-economic wellbeing by stymieing – with their unpatriotic and destructive actions and utterances in and out of Parliament?
For nearly three decades Guyana had been plunged into the depths of apathy, despair and hopelessness until this nation was rescued by a restoration of democracy following the October 1992 free and fair election.
Then it was that all that Dr. Jagan had envisioned for this nation had a hope of bearing fruit, but the task was more daunting than cleaning the Augean stables.
Slowly but surely Dr. Cheddi Jagan, as explained at the PYO forum by former President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, led his team toward fructification of his dreams for a united and prosperous Guyana. And even when he bowed to his mortality, he left a structure in place that sustained and propelled his dreams and visions into concrete realities.
This is the Jagan legacy: Great developmental ideas carved from the dungeons of adversity, crafted in the landscape of an unrestrained mind, honed in the soul of a peace-loving and compassionate leader, and implemented with a human face through a heart of a nation’s patriarch.
And that legacy is a vital force guiding the current PPP/C leadership that has catalysed a transformation in this nation, to the extent where Dr Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, described Guyana as “… the only shining star of the Caribbean.”
This runaway development was stymied in various ways by the unpatriotic, anti-people, anti-development Opposition cabal, including the hostile media. Yet, against this background, Guyana’s development continues to be a work in progress instead of retrogression, with record and sustained economic growth despite global socio-economic depression.
The PPP/C’s plans are well-documented in its development strategy programmes and its successive manifestos, which do not digress from Cheddi’s vision, which Dr. Jagdeo said encapsulates every existential dynamic and transcends every human parameter and limitation because age was never a factor for the Father of the Nation.
According to the former President it was the nimbleness of his mind, and it is that brilliant mind that created the pathway on which the PPP/C is treading; thus President Ramotar’s promise of continuity after Dr. Jagdeo demitted office in 2011.
Moses Nagamootoo’s promises fooled the people in 2011 and they gave him their votes, but his pull factor was the Jagan legacy, which they thought he was nurturing, and history has proven their expectations hollow.
Granger, the presidential candidate of the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) alliance, in his address to GMSA stakeholders said, “We will also develop hydroelectric power within a project which we have identified as the Potaro Basin Development Authority, which could embody the present Amaila Falls.”
On the question of the sugar sector, he added, “We are not going to throw the sugar industry through the window…there is no quick fix, but we are not going to dissolve the sugar industry… it is too big to fail.”
But, like Burnham and Nagamootoo, Granger is riding on the back of the Jagan legacy, because these concepts are fully documented in PPP/C developmental strategy documents. His promise of “cheaper energy” and the assurance of support for an industry that is “too big to fail” are not new ideas, according to President Ramotar.
Dr. Jagan’s disciple said, “These are initiatives, assurances and deliverables that this administration (the People’s Progressive Party/Civic administration) brought to the table.”
All that the Opposition leaders do is borrow ideas from the visionary developmental concepts of the PPP/C founding father. However, mouthing the words crafted in Dr. Jagan’s brains is one thing; but one needs matching brains to convert those ideas into concrete realities. Guyana was not transformed from the dungeons into a middle-class economy through verbal gymnastics, but by the requisite combination of many factors, not least is the guidance of Dr. Cheddi Jagan – the visionary PPP/C leader who formulated those concepts.
However, President Ramotar needs to recognise the fact that Guyanese have, time and again, been fooled by the electioneering gimmicks and slyly-crafted rhetoric of the political opportunists and he needs to guard against this eventuality during the 2015 elections.
His assertions that “the comments we have seen from the leadership of APNU+AFC represent a lack of integrity, a lack of commitment to the people and a lack of positive characteristics…it is all a warning to the Guyanese people,” are based on decades of experience of political tricksters and their electioneering gimmickery. And that is why he needs to recognise the need for extra caution that this would not be repeated come the General and Regional elections on May 11 this year.