YESTERDAY, KAMLA Persad-Bissessar was finalising arrangements to assume the office of parliamentary Opposition Leader in Trinidad and Tobago, while Guyana was celebrating its 40th anniversary as a republic with mounting speculations about a likely coming battle in the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) over its presidential nominee for the 2011 national poll.

Persad-Bissessar’s sensational defeat last month of Basdeo Panday, the once mercurial and charismatic founder-leader of the United National Congress (UNC), to now be officially appointed Opposition Leader in the House of Representatives, could well change the traditional status quo in parliamentary party politics for the next general election  due in 2012.

The battle for the leadership, bitterly fought in the fashion of a general election contest that left Panday humiliated and Persad-Bissessar as the first woman politician to head a major party in Trinidad and Tobago, had resulted in the spilling of much political blood across traditional constituencies and bases of support of the UNC.

And even before President George Maxwell was ready to do what’s expected–appoint her to replace Panday, her former mentor of many years–Winston Dookeran’s Congress of People (COP) was pushing ahead with plans for a major alliance of opposition parties to end the rule of Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s incumbent People’s National Movement (PNM).

Whatever develops out of efforts between Bissessar’s UNC and Dookeran’s COP, there are fears of an overflow of acrimony and abuse about “betrayals”, and more, well beyond the replacement of Panday as Opposition Leader, the painful price he has paid for a terrible misreading of the mood for change within the party.

Presidential Nominee

+In the case of Guyana, where the governing PPP has been fortifying its base across ethnic boundaries since defeating the People’s National Congress (PNC) at the October 1992 presidential and parliamentary election, its decisive Central Committtee could perhaps face its first really tough challenge in determining who should get the coveted prize of nomination as the party’s candidate for next year’s general election.

Incumbent President Bharrat Jagdeo, whose stature in party and government had significantly grown even while the party’s patriarch (Cheddi Jagan) and matriarch (Janet Jagan) were around, is constitutionally debarred from seeking a third consecutive term as Head of State.

Although it was of academic interest while the Jagans held the leadership reins–in and out of government–the norm has been for the party’s executive to discuss the choice of nominees for President (as head of the list of candidates for election) and refer the outcome for a decision by the Central Committee.

Once the CC arrived at a conclusion, the process of informing and sensitising the party’s membership across the country would take place. That, so far, is for the record. Now, however, there can be no guarantees of a smooth, matured process in the choice of a presidential nominee to lead the party into the coming August 2011 poll, without challenges among potential candidates.

Currently, the most likely of such candidates is the party’s General Secretary, Donald Ramotar, and economist. He is said to be favoured by outgoing President Jagdeo; and is on record as declaring, in reponse to media questioning, that he would “feel honoured, personally, if the party gives me the (presidential) nomination and shows that confidence in me….”

It so happens, however, that the PPP’s hierarchy is understandably reluctant to give any credence, at this time, to growing speculations of the likelihood of the Central Commitee having to deal with at least two presidential nominees–the other being Ralph Ramkarran, a noted senior counsel and currently Speaker of Parliament..

Like Ramotar, Ramkarran is  a well-connected stalwart of the PPP, and has a distinguished performance record in serving the party. He, too, has now signalled  how “honoured” he would be to receive the party’s nomination as its presidential candidate for 2011.

The political choreography inviting “nomination” is clearly underway–though unofficial at this time.

Once the expected contest for presidential nomination gets underway, the PPP’s Central Committee could come under severe stress to avoid internal squabbles from exploding into the public domain with party groups becoming democratically involved in determining who gets the prized nomination.

Question is whether, in the quest for a broad-based democratic choice of its 2011 presidential candidate, Guyana’s ruling PPP can avoid the political blood-letting of Trinidad and Tobago’s UNC that led to the humiliating defeat of Panday and a seriously ruptured opposition party that Persad-Bissessar has the enormous challenge to lead along the path of unity.