I CONGRATULATE newly elected Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo who has shown his critical value in the politics of the nation through the elections of 2011 and 2015. While he was dismissed as a non-entity by the now Opposition PPP in 2011, the party lost Government without his being part of it.
The PPP leadership (Central Committee and Executive Committee) should never have let him go. The party underestimated his strength and popularity among rank and file supporters. He was unwisely forced out of the PPP and the party paid dearly at the polls in 2011 and 2015.
In 2011, after the election, I penned that the estrangement and departure of Moses cost the PPP/C its majority.
In fact, surveys I conducted prior to the election showed Nagamootoo taking a sizeable chunk of support from the PPP’s traditional base. The PPP dismissed the poll’s findings. In 2015, the refusal by elements in the leadership to reconcile with Moses cost the PPP/C Government. And surveys I conducted prior to the election showed persistent support for the erstwhile former PPP leader among the disgruntled base.
Has it dawned on the leadership of the PPP that Nagamootoo was critical to its electability and maybe even its viability?
Clearly Moses has shown his significant value both to the PPP and PNC (APNU). When he left the PPP, the party “lost” and when he teamed up with the PNC, that party “won”. He is the common denominator in both results.
There is much blame to share around on why Moses left the PPP and why he was forced to link up with the APNU. But this much cannot be challenged – as a veteran PPP politician, journalist and grass roots activist, few (if anyone) among those currently in the party contributed as much to the PPP as Moses. He was there as a youth during the independence struggle. And he, like others including Clement Rohee, Ralph Ramkarran, and Donald Ramotar, Navin Chandarpal, Harry Nokta, etc.) played a seminal role in the struggle for the restoration of democracy during the PPP’s 28 years in the political wilderness.
Like many of us, he suffered tremendously (lack of employment, etc.) during the dictatorship and like many of us, he was unrelenting in the battle for free and fair elections. In Government, he was Dr. Jagan’s (and to a large extent Janet’s) right hand man and both Jagans depended on him for so much especially when it came to information and research. He wrote and reviewed a lot of Cheddi and Janet’s speeches. Like others, he tried to bring about internal change in the PPP, to democratise the workings of the party. But like others, he too failed in this noble effort and left unhappily.
Prior to the 2011 elections, there was an unwarranted attack on this illustrious son of the PPP. Moses suffered the worst derision, ridicule, insult, humiliation and indignity of any politician after giving almost 50 years of service to it. Pandit Ramlall and myself protested in vain against the attacks and the ill-treatment meted out to him and prior to that Khemraj Ramjattan. Like Khemraj, Moses was called a maverick and at one time was even told to leave. As Pandit Ramlall remarked then, “it appears the PPP wants to leave Government. It wants to expel itself from office by side-lining every good person”. I could not agree more.
‘Mo’, as he was fondly called, decried what he called the subversion of internal party democracy. He accused the party of drifting away from its moorings describing its functioning as a betrayal of the working class and the grass roots. All he asked for was the upholding of a democratic value that he felt was denied to him (there was more to what he said in public) when he announced his intention to contest for the nomination as President; he wanted an open election among party members or delegates to select the Presidential nominee. He claimed he offered various proposals for joint candidacies and rotations and all were rejected.
Moses was pilloried for leaving the party. The long-suffering servant of the people felt he had been repeatedly violated and would not take insults any more. But he still did not respond to the attacks. He endured the abuses in stoic silence. However, he left the PPP. Facilitated by AFC activist Lionel Peters (as he related to me), he joined the AFC which openly embraced him and it paid the party handsome dividends. Today, AFC is in Government in a partnership and Moses deservingly is our Prime Minister; he would have been President had PPP selected him as the candidate in 2011 or if the APNU+AFC coalition had selected him as its Presidential candidate. He also would have been PPP Prime Minister in 2011 or 2015 had he been selected and he was never averse to a coalition with the PPP and even today he has been calling for an inclusive Government with the PPP. Even a week before the May elections, confident of victory, in a brief conversation with me, Moses urged the formation of a Government of national unity.
After the 2011 elections when the PPP lost its majority, several surveys I conducted found that party supporters wanted reconciliation. But the party leadership would have none of it, and in fact attacked the findings of the surveys describing the pollster, myself, as “an AFCite” as revealed to me by party insiders. Instead of reaching out to Moses to reconcile differences, elements in the party’s leadership attacked him openly and privately. Suffice it to say that while I am not at liberty to divulge confidential information, various efforts at reconciliation and addressing simple demands (of accountability and other insignificant requests) were rebuffed.
Moses doesn’t have personal animosity towards members of the PPP leadership. And I do not think he will be vindictive as Leader of the House (after Parliament’s opening on June 10). When we last spoke, he was not bitter. And in fact he asked me to join the coalition’s campaign (which I could not do because of my professionalism as a pollster). But he did say he wanted a broad based Government that so far is not (probably because the PPP does not want to be a part of it). Moses will be assessed on his success at promoting a national unity Government and delivering to his former party supporters.

VISHNU BISRAM