I CAME down the stairs of the CIOG/MYO building after being part of a panel on the topic of genocide in Gaza last Friday.
President Dr Irfaan Ali was right in front of me and invited me to have dinner with him. It was time to break the Ramadan fast. He threw his arm around me and ushered me to the table. His tsunamic smile turned into a lengthy laugh and his eyes were pyrotechnical.

He said; “come and eat!” I told him I had to go because I had to prepare for the Freddie Kissoon-Gildarie Show, an hour after, which meant I had to leave CIOG, drive home to Tukeyen, change and head back to town. He insisted that I eat. The man’s personality was just incredibly inviting that one simply was subdued by this exhibition of power modesty and the descent into presidential warmth.

I have never seen or met a Caribbean governmental leader who is so different, so inviting, so charming that you have to be careful with your psychology that you do not become susceptible to proselytization. I knew two Caribbean leaders personally – Cheddi Jagan and Maurice Bishop of Grenada.

I cannot say I knew Jagan that well after he became president. But I did meet with him once at State House and we spoke a few times on the phone. I would describe Jagan as having an intense personality. Conversations with intense personalities do not allow for much lightness and humour and the presence of those two things provides for the expansion of mutual likeness although it was impossible not to like Jagan once you had more than ten minutes of conversation with him.

Cheddi Jagan always had too much on his mind so this did not allow for the interjection of necessary diversions. It was the same with Maurice Bishop. Perhaps more intense than Cheddi Jagan, Bishop’s assumption to state power in Grenada burdened his mind in unfortunate ways, that the dialogues with him never reached the comfort zone.

Maurice was tall, handsome (perhaps one of the most handsome politicians in the world of politics at the time), and oozed charisma. But the burden of power transformed him into a different human from when he was one of the Caribbean’s popular radicals.

My judgement of Jagan and Bishop was that they were one-dimensional personalities. I think Mohamed Irfaan Ali may be the most multi-dimensional leader the Caribbean has produced. I have heard stories about Forbes Burnham that would put him in that classification. But I think Dr. Ali leads the way in this context.

A leader will always achieve greatness once he possesses the ability to move from one type of persona to the other. Leadership qualities demand that of you. I think Dr. Ali has the uncanny ability to let his personality roam all over his guests and one of the ways he succeeds in doing that is that he has this motto that he needs to make you as comfortable as possible because mental comfort breeds trust.

Outside of Forbes Burnham, I think only Dr. Ali possesses the rare finesse to intersperse lightness with sensitive discussion. What that unusual approach does is it leads to the comfort zone I referred to above. The introduction of a jocular jest ironically does not subtract from the serious nature of the conversation. What it does, is it creates a more listening environment and I heard Burnham was good at that.

If a leader does not possess a strong sense of humour, I think his/her reach will be less expansive than one who does. I have heard that Prime Minister Edward Seaga of Jamaica was a jocular person and Mia Mottley of Barbados has a strong sense of humour. Apart from Burnham, the only politician I think in Guyana who was evocative in his humour was Boysie Ramkarran, Jagan’s de facto deputy and father of Mr. Ralph Ramkarran.

Now we have Mohamed Irfaan Ali. Dr. Ali makes you like him because he has that type of aura about him. It is difficult not to like Dr. Ali once you get to know him. I believe he has brought some refreshing dimensions to presidential politics that in the end will eclipse all other leaders in both Guyana and the Caribbean. I don’t think Guyana and the Caribbean have seen his type before. I like how he uses lightness to win you over.

You would be in a serious conversation with him and he would interrupt you and say, “by the way try this paynuse; you ever had this kind of paynuse before?” Mohamed Irfaan Ali is poised to leave a huge legacy as a great Caribbean leader. I wish him the best now and in the future.