THIS analyst is in two minds on which word to use to describe Khemraj Ramjattan, Moses Nagamootoo and Clive Thomas.
Is the word “sad” more appropriate than pitiful? 10 years ago, these three players engineered a futuristic moment in Guyana, then, when that magical touch arrived, they themselves transformed it into the opposite of the Midas Touch.
Thomas, famous for the Walter Rodney ramparts of the 1970s, manicured a WPA covenant with the PNC that brought three top former associates of Rodney to power – Thomas himself, Rupert Roopnaraine and Maurice Odle (the WPA triumvirate). The famous WPA that struggled so long for people’s power, no dictator had acquired state power.
The betrayal of people’s power, no dictator by the WPA triumvirate has few parallels, maybe in the global arena in the 20th century. Since August 2020, when the triumvirate was voted out, Thomas has been reduced to the ignominious task of writing a Stabroek News weekly column that hardly anyone reads.
Thomas is now an obscure figure that has become invisible. Odle has written his autobiography in which he describes the emasculation of the WPA as a coalition member of the APNU government. And Roopnaraine, perhaps the most elitist revolutionary (quite oxymoronic, eh!) that Third World politics produced has fallen seriously ill. One sincerely hopes that he recovers soon.
We move now to Khemraj Ramjattan. During the 2015 elections, campaign, I spoke at a meeting with Ramjattan in Tuschen. On our way back to Georgetown, I was in his vehicle, and he was telling an overseas visitor of the phenomenal success of the AFC as a third party that has not been achieved in the Caribbean (that was not true; the United Force in 1964 in Guyana was a successful and more powerful and resourceful third party than the AFC).
Ramjattan became a political star from 2005 until his star faded in 2015 when power was achieved. I will always remember the expression of a high-level AFC official who used the word peacock to describe how Ramjattan was flying all over the corridors in Parliament in praise of the Hamilton Green Pension Bill when it was being debated.
This was the man, who alongside his colleagues in the AFC, promised Guyanese the wind of change, the tides of hope when the AFC was formed in 2005 and people loved the promise and bought into it.
Today, as a political analyst, I cannot make up my mind between the WPA triumvirate mentioned above and the AFC, as to who betrayed the dream of the Guyanese people in the most despicable, depraved way that has no other example in recent global politics.
Like Thomas, Ramjattan is gone. Superstars fade and become jaded, but some juice is still left in many of them. In fact, there are literally dozens of yesteryear’s superstars that are still swinging on the stage.
Ramjattan is not even a faded, jaded superstar. He is sadly not even an infinitesimal footnote in Guyanese politics. In the campaign for the 2025 elections, he is not seen nor heard. Leonard Craig said Ramjattan told him, he, Ramjattan has called it George. Not only has he called it George, but he should invoke Macbeth.
I quote from Macbeth
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.”
No quote is more appropriate to the study of Ramjattan as a failure in politics than that reference to Macbeth, and finally, Moses Nagamootoo.
Where from Shakespeare can you get a quote that applies to this miserable man whose substance simply revolts you? I think it is from Julius Caesar. Cassius, speaking to Brutus, told him: “The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars but in ourselves.”
Nagamootoo wrote his autobiography last year and he sees his faults not in himself, but in all the Guyanese whom he interacted with. Unlike Thomas who writes his little pieces each week in the newspapers in the hope that people will still see him as relevant, unlike Ramjattan who was happy to be a self-effacing face in the AFC since 2020 but nevertheless, still a face, Nagamootoo rode away long ago.
I have known all three of these so-called patriots for a very long time. It is a study in complex psychology when you reflect on their superb contributions during the rough and frightening days of Burnhamite dictatorship.
All three contributed to the long struggle for free and fair elections. But look what they became in the month of March in 2020. So, I end with what I began with. Which word best describes these three men who have left the political scene – sad or pitiful. I think it is both.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.