Dear Editor
PEOPLE’S Progressive Party/ Civic Member of Parliament Charles Ramson’s public declaration of intent as a contender for the nomination of his party’s presidential ticket, and the subsequent response from party leader Bharrat Jagdeo, who has bluntly said that this Member of Parliament (MP) has departed from established party norms in making such an announcement and MP Harry Gill’s letter, branding Ramson a “spoiled brat”: in Kaieteur News, July 02, 2018,“ Charles Ramson will make a great President of Guyana, but not now” highlights the decrepit, undemocratic party ideology of democratic centralism.

It is the well-known gagged system whereby individual positions are not tolerated, unless it represents the united voice of the party. It has exposed the divide between the modern-minded and enlightened younger cadres of the party, as per Ramson’s statement, as against the unyielding, decrepit, and archaic mindset of Jagdeo, defended by Gill’s letter.

Undoubtedly, Ramson’s statement, particularly on the role of young people is a direct challenge to a party, inclusive of Gill, which despite the presence of a number of young members, continue to exclude them from its senior-echelon, decision-making organ.

In fact, such thoughts expose the undemocratic ways of the PPP/C, since the young pretender said, “If you invite our generation into the process and court our support, then you are going to have to accept that we are going to be bringing fresh ideas, beliefs and way of doing things too. We respect customs, but we also stand firmly for freedom, justice, openness and fairness.”

This, without any argument, punches at the heart of the medieval mindset of the party’s ways of understanding a world that has experienced rapid change in governance, with renewed concepts of human rights and justice as they relate to the lives of the governed.

Without debating the sincerity or not, of such a departure from tradition statement from this PPP/C MP, these are views that can be interpreted as condemning the entire party’s past system of governance, especially as it relates to a multi-cultural society of Guyana, and its blatant policy of racism and marginalisation. Until now, they are a definite repudiation of the fossilised mentality of a party, that are represented by a dinosaur collective that are still residing in a political Jurassic Park.

Regards
Earl Hamilton