Dear Editor
POLITICAL leaders are a very important slice of a nation’s key social category. They are about a collective who aspires to national leadership and whose public profiles are for the most part frequently on public display, seeking to influence the national debate/conversations on the critical issues of the day. This means that their every statement is listened to by their constituents.

Therefore, political leaders must always exercise due care and caution as to content, whether verbal or written, or as is done these days, through social media; and though it is a given that political leadership does require charisma of some kind as a necessary specific for appeal to constituents, this has to be developed and carried out within the ambit of personal integrity, and a morality that speaks of respect for the public, especially with regard to their assessment and concerns for the behaviours and morality of their leaders. In fact, this serves as a reminder to political leaders, in whatever society, that their every public statement of any type can either impact negatively or positively on both their personal selves and the wider society, often bringing with them the attendant consequences of public opinion and its conclusive judgement on their personal morality.
There is no doubt that parliamentary Opposition Leader of the People’s Progressive

Party/Civic (PPP/C), and former President Bharrat Jagdeo readily fits into the daily discussed category of a type of political leader, whose known penchant for a certain type of public verbal obnoxiousness has become legend, though rejected and totally unaccepted as the societal norm for the conduct of political leaders. Members of Parliament are public officers; as such, a member must act in the best interests of the nation.

As public officers, they have a fiduciary relationship with the citizens on whose behalf they act and they are entrusted with responsibility to protect and uphold the common interests of citizens. In other words, they must put the public interest above all others; their own behaviour should reflect favourably on the reputation of the institution of parliament;
The constitutional office of leader of the opposition therefore makes Jagdeo a member of the executive. Hence, Jagdeo’s latest barrage of profanity-laced tirade making the rounds on social media, is yet another example of a kind of violent, dirty, lewd, and obnoxious crudity of language which continues to unmask the realities of a political leader as a mean-spirited and vindictive citizen whose constant offloading of such cesspool language highlights the significance of his intolerance to diverse opinions, and irrefutable evidence of being unable to be part of any movement for the national good, much less in seeking to return to proper government.

Unfortunately, those who have been familiar with Jagdeo’s public pronouncements, would not be any surprised at such behavior, coming from a former president, and now leader of the parliamentary opposition, whose unwelcomed lexicon precedes him. It is yet another example of the vintage Jagdeo public chimney that continues to fume up the environment whenever there is an outburst.

Not even his apology, deceptively made to give the appearance of a one-off occurrence from a usually well-mannered citizen and national leader, and a jumbled piece of unreasonable explanation can obfuscate a deliberate intention to always disrespect and be offensive to the nation when he does not get his way, or a situation goes counter to his expectations. In fact, his apology, surprisingly given, has to be seen as an insult, and an attempt to placate a public who by and large has become disdainful and tired of Jagdeo’s pit verbiage, and his disrespect for the citizenry of a country which he once had led.
Of course, on any scale of human rights, Jagdeo’s behaviour, reprehensible, and the product of a vindictive mindset, and bent on taking his country down, if he does not get what he wants on his own terms, is outright bullyism; it is tantamount to those well-known dictators. He speaks as if he has the national birth certificate, and the attendant geographic transport, which gives him sole right of determine the lives and existence of citizens, as to their social rights.

His statement therefore about being in his ‘bad book’ and those placed there, not being entitled to” privileges’’ from him in such instance, is ominous, and must be seen as a threat to sections of the nation in all the unambiguous meaning that those two words, and their qualifying statement would seek to convey publicly. It would seem to be akin to the following, but not necessarily confined: that there will be penalties for those who are continuing to function and serve the state in the discharge of its public services to the nation, despite Jagdeo’s call that they to cease to do so. In Jagdeo’s current office as leader of the opposition he has no authority to stop citizens from doing their sworn duties to the State.

No amount of political grandstanding, or adversarial politics, must excuse this latest example of worse than uncivil behaviour by a senior political leader, who holds a constitutional office, which does not prescribe expletive-laced language, public insults, and threats as part of the functions of his official duties. And if there are those of his constituents who will continue to cheer him on for such nasty and mean spiritedness, they should be aware that they are just as guilty as he is, and are jointly responsible, for failing to reprimand their party leader for uncivil conduct which is unbecoming and disrespectful to even their life-long neighbours and friends, who may be of a different ethnicity/or political affiliation. In fact, he degrades the office of parliamentary leader of the opposition by such gutter-like smut, while setting a bad example for such a category of constitutional political leaders.
It is timely, again, that Jagdeo be reminded that a good political leader is one who leads by personal morality, possessing good communication and interpersonal skills with an ability to work with other people; inspiring and motivating them, rather than causing alienation. Jagdeo’s trademark crudity must be condemned, since it has no place in political civility.
Regards
Carla Mendonca