Will the second Moses make it to the promise land?
The Freddie Kissoon column
Kaieteur News
March 7, 2006
As I have written before in three previous columns, of all the people with the name Moses, the Guyanese people are more familiar with two of them; the Biblical Moses and Moses Nagamootoo. Both Moseses saw their destiny as lying in the promise land. The earlier Moses from the Bible didn't make it to the promise land. He died while going there but he did liberate his people.
The Guyanese Moses has been heading to the promise land in a reassuring way until Papa Cheddi died. Then, unlike the Biblical Moses, he was quickly stopped in his tracks by the communist cabal in Freedom House. Ignominiously tossed aside by the PPP for a young leader who hardly knew anything about the era of the Guyanese Moses and how he fought for his party, the Guyanese Moses still managed to survive and retain his popularity among his people.
He did this by distancing himself from the venalities, perversities and crudities that had taken over Cheddi Jagan's party. In taking a principled stance, his alienation from the PPP deepened. Then the climax came. At a turbulent meeting of the executive committee, Moses raised issues of ethics and good governance and was subjected to abuse. He then stormed out of the meeting, exclaiming as he walked away, “I done with ya'all.”
It was a common Guyanese reaction.
But the long knives were out for Moses. Soon after that outburst a few months ago, the General-Secretary of the PPP, Donald Ramotar, wrote to Moses accepting his resignation and thanking him for his service. Since Moses never tendered any resignation whatsoever, he was appalled at this mistreatment and refused to renew his membership. Then came some re-thinking.
First, there was the Vishnu Bisram poll. It showed that Berbicians want Moses back in the leadership along with Khemraj Ramjattan. Secondly, the survey revealed that there is likely to be a not so minimal shift in voting patterns among Berbicians if the Guyanese Moses is not allowed to continue his journey into the promise land.
As a result of that knowledge, the PPP leadership has done a volte-face. It has initiated dialogue with Moses that was kept quiet until I revealed it in one of my columns. I discussed that column with him because he seemed unhappy with aspects of the main arguments.
He was satisfied with my analysis in the article which simply posited the theory that for any-reintegration to be successful, he, Moses, has to have a major cluster of his demands met by the PPP leaders since those conditions are conducive to good governance. I made the point that if those criteria that he asked the PPP to subscribe to are not conceded to him then his constituencies will not regard him with the same enduring admiration.
Now in last Sunday's edition of the Stabroek News, Mr. Donald Ramotar admitted that the differences between Moses and the PPP leaders are being ironed out.
So is Moses back on his way to the promise land? For me, the answer is no. Using all the analytical skills I have, I cannot see how the PPP can concede good governance to Moses. It is not in the nature of the PPP. There hasn't been any sustained period of good governance in the PPP Government since Cheddi Jagan died.
With each passing day, with increasing frequency, the PPP demonstrates bully boy tactics, intolerance of stakeholder politics and increasing impatience with the honest and reasonable implorations of the Guyanese people. The PPP Government in Guyana is the most unpopular CARICOM Government and the most corrupt and incompetent government in the Anglo-phone Caribbean .
However, let's assume that Nagamootoo believes he is going to change that before election. He, Moses, has to explain how it will be done. It can only be done, as I explained in a previous column, by reducing human behaviour to scientific explanations. That is scientifically improbable, but in the case of Moses and the PPP that is what it has come to. By this I mean that the outcome is like a scientific experiment that you can predict.
For the reintegration of Moses Nagamootoo into the PPP to occur and for Moses to retain his national credibility, the PPP has to democratise.
At this stage of the game, I can't see that happening. The PPP lost its way since Jagan died and is a politically authoritarian organisation drowning in paranoia and insensitivity. I honestly believe that the rational instinct in the PPP leadership took flight after the 2001 election. From hereon, the PPP just inevitably drifted into semi-fascism. This is where we are now.
Elections cannot be held by August. GECOM is absolutely behind schedule and it is impossible for that organisation to surmount the formidable obstacles that GECOM (perhaps) deliberately created since 2002 in time for August. If election is held with those flaws that currently characterize the system, Guyana will go up again.
Against this background, the local Moses is trying to emulate the Biblical Moses by parting the volcanic sea in which the PPP is swimming and thus create a valley of safety. Sadly for Moses the reign of the Jagdeo presidency is in jeopardy. The PPP is in jeopardy; Moses himself is in jeopardy. Who says he is gong to the promise land? Incidentally, Donald Ramotar is wrong. Moses Nagamootoo is not a PPP member. His card elapsed on December 31, last year and he hasn't renewed it. Or has he secretly done so? Tell us Moses.