Mrs. Jagan tells us about President Bush…
But what about Castro?
Freddie Kissoon column
Kaieteur News
November 30, 2006
Do not ever have a cup of hot coffee in your hand when you reach the part in the newspapers where PPP leaders speak about the existence of democracy in Guyana. You can lose a limb as I once did. The shock will be bound to make you spill the coffee on your leg. When I read the Mirror newspaper, the propaganda organ of the PPP, I normally sit flat on the ground as if I am doing yoga. If you are on a chair, the exasperation can cause you to fall off and you can break your spine. That happened to a friend of mine five years ago after he read, in the Mirror newspaper, an article by Mrs. Jagan on the achievements of the PPP Government since she took over.
I squatted on the floor when I read last week's issue of the Mirror. I still hurt myself after I reached the part in Mrs. Jagan's column in which she pointed to corruption in the award of contracts under President Bush. I was so livid that my head involuntarily drooped back and I fell on the back of my skull. I was unconscious for hours. I recovered, and silly me, went back to complete Mrs. Jagan's piece in the newspaper that she has presided over the past fifty years.
Mrs. Jagan went after President Bush. It is clear that she thinks he is not a democratic person. Mrs. Jagan never told us the past sixty years that she has been in politics if she thinks Fidel Castro is. Irritation takes over your emotions in reading the Janet Jagan column in the weekend Mirror. Here are some quotes that will either irk or amuse you: “Guyanese voters turn out in far greater numbers than those in the USA and other highly rated democracies. Doesn't that tell its own story – in Guyana a greater number of citizens participate in one of the basic foundations of the democratic state? But in Guyana, the voters, according to those who disagree with the results, are like cattle herded to the polls by racially directed politicians.”
Really, what do you make of this unbelievable echo of a woman who, at 87 years of age and with over sixty years of active service in politics, can still pen these types of unrealistic statements. Before we deal with the reason why Guyanese vote, let's look at a fantastic admission of Janet Jagan that perhaps has never been made public before since the birth of the PPP. I would suggest to political analysts and historians that they preserve this article by Mrs. Jagan because it is such a historic perception that it will have to be reproduced in their work for a long time to come.
So phenomenal is this admission that I will quote it again for emphasis. Here we go; this is coming from none other than Mrs. Janet Jagan, one of the 20 th century's most enduring communists: “In Guyana a greater number of citizens participate in one of the basic foundations of the democratic state.”
Mrs. Jagan concedes after more than 60 years in politics that the right to vote for a candidate who you want to see rule your country, a candidate of your choice, is one of the foundations on which rests the democratic state. Meaning then, for the state to be democratic, it has to embody the right to vote.
In communist countries, this right never existed. Mrs. Jagan then, using the logic of her argument, agrees that communist countries lacked one of the essential pillars of democracy - the right to vote. But this has never been recognised and conceded by Dr. and Mrs. Jagan since the forties. Mrs. Jagan has never denounced Cuba as an undemocratic state. Yet her article is a devastating critique of President George Bush who has been elected twice after facing stiff opposition from opposing contenders. Castro has ruled Cuba for over 40 years and never has he faced an opposing Cuban running against him for the presidency.
Well, finally, in her advancing years, Mrs. Jagan concurs with countless people around the world that democracy includes the right to vote. Let's move on to an unsavoury part of the quote. She denies that Guyanese voters are motivated by race. Shall we discuss this? It is an opinion not worth being dignified. Let's look at some of the attacks on George Bush (mind you, I am certainly not an admirer of the current US President). The de facto leader of the PPP writes: “The US President and his advisors, who, in the wake of his party's defeat in the mid-term elections, are going to disappear one by one…”
Again, how interesting! In the next two years, President Bush is indeed going to disappear from the American political scene. But will Mrs. Jagan disappear too? She has been in politics before 75% of the present Guyanese population was born. Mrs. Jagan entered politics at the beginning of the forties, and since then has been active on the Guyanese political scene. She contested central committee and executive committee elections at the 2005 congress of her party and won.
She sits on both bodies and occupies an office at Freedom House. She still heads the editorial board of the Mirror newspaper that meets weekly; all of this coming from a person who is 87 years of age with over sixty years of active politics. Isn't it right to ask the question when Mrs. Jagan is going to call it a day?
May I remind readers that dental technician, Cobeer Persaud has released a tape to the press and the police in which her son, Joey Jagan purportedly informed Mr. Persaud that his mom possesses political power and he will resort to her to get policy changes.
Let's end with the funny side of this article that appeared in the November 26 issue of the Mirror and that you ought to read. Here is Mrs. Jagan again: “President Bush has allowed massive corruption and his awarding of contracts has not stood up to scrutiny. One of the major issues of the US mid-term elections was corruption.” Poor Mrs. Jagan did not go on to state that such corruption caused the opposition to win the elections. In Guyana, the more corrupt you are, the more elections you win. Tell me more about democracy in Guyana, old lady.