A million ways to become a great president
Freddie Kissoon column
Kaieteur News
February 18, 2007
The Kaieteur News columnist in his Friday offering opined that President Jagdeo hasn't got the time on his hand with which he can use to become a great president. Understandably, he argues that in a poor country like Guyana , it needs more than ten years (two terms) for a president to resuscitate the economy.
No statement on the political economy can be truer. Guyana 's economic well-being is far from satisfactory. To bring it up to world standards will certainly take more than the four more years Mr. Jagdeo has.
An industrialised county like Germany took less than ten years to rebound from the devastations of war. A country like Guyana cannot emulate that feat. We are a raw-material producer that suffers at the hands of market controllers in the global economy.
Peeping Tom went on to add that if the economy improves phenomenally, Jagdeo will be remembered as a great achiever.
As a social scientist, I would rate Peeping Tom's essay as missing important methodologies that are necessary when one is writing such an analysis. Here are the flaws in that Friday article.
I believe their publication is useful in understanding that time is not the important factor for Jagdeo. He can become a super, tremendous hero tomorrow if he has the will, spirit and the psychological maturity to do it.
It can be argued that it is not what Jagdeo can do to become a great president. It is what he shouldn't do that will make him a fantastic Guyanese leader.
In third world states like Guyana , you cannot separate politics and economics. It is methodologically impossible. The two are inherently linked. This is the way colonial societies developed into independent territories.
It is outside the scope of this article to show how the route to development in Europe evolved along lines that were fundamentally different from the freed colonies. The brilliant book, “Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy” by Barrington Moore Jr. remains one of the classical explanations in this context.
The Pakistani political scientist in the early seventies, Hamza Alavi, put it elegantly when he referred to the newly independent territories as having an over-developed state. What he meant was that the post-colonial leaders inherited countries where oversized governments dominated every single corner of the land.
In places like Guyana , development is stultified because economics is subordinate to politics. Unless. President Jagdeo creates history by minimizing the power of narrow party politics (not positive politics in general) over economics, he will probably end up as a footnote in Caribbean history.
Peeping Tom should understand how politics work under the PPP and PNC. The Peeper makes the point that if there is good success in the rice, gold, bauxite and sugar industries, then, greatness is waiting for Jagdeo.
The Peeper needs to familiarise himself with the over-developed states in Africa where the diamond, bauxite, gold and other industries achieved phenomenal expansion but where did the money go – swallowed up into the bowels of politics and not put in the service of development (check why Chavez came to power).
What makes the Peeper think that Mr. Jagdeo will use the money wisely? Suppose those industries do take off, will we get development if morons, imbeciles and donkeys are put in charge to manage sensitive areas of the economy? This is the biggest weakness in the Friday piece of Peeping Tom. Industries in Guyana can take off but will not take off because the cousins, drink-mates, friends, aunties, uncles, nephews and sycophants of the party are elevated and given extensive latitude
It nauseates any decent political observer to see the kind of people that are chosen by the political leadership of the PPP to run this country.
One permanent secretary should not even see the steps of a ministry much less to be in charge of one. The University of Guyana has been virtually destroyed by Mr. Jagdeo's selection. The most shocking, disturbing and disgusting example is a man that cannot get along with his fellow-human beings. Everywhere he goes he is rejected.
Six cabinet ministers since 1992 have told Freedom House that they want this man removed from their respective ministries.
The KN staff knows this man very well and all of us were speechless when we learned that he has become an important and powerful aide to guess who? The President himself.
When I heard he got his influential job at New Garden Street , I immediately rang Robert Persaud. I told Robert that though I know the man is a big PPP supporter, it is best the President pays him a million dollars a month to stay locked up in a room rather than having him interface with the public.
This kind of politics will never, I repeat, never get Jagdeo into the history books. On the contrary, it will destroy him.
A president goes into the hall of fame when learned and ingenious minds are cultivated by him. These minds pass on great ideas which are then accepted and implemented by a good leader who should take the credit for being wise. It is seven and a half years that Mr. Jagdeo has been in power and I see no inclination that the President wants to have men and women of intellectual fibre with him.
The ghost of Cheddi Jagan haunts the Guyana Government. If any leader loved, adored and nurtured mediocre underlings, and wanted them to be by his side that leader was Cheddi Jagan.
The tragic thing about the PPP leaders which in all honesty was not present at all in the administrations of Forbes Burnham and Desmond Hoyte is that everything and everybody must be viewed within the context of where they stand politically.
I have absolutely no illusion that when the time comes to choose a new Vice Chancellor for UG after the deadline for applications passes, the list will be the subject of a discussion at Freedom House and the candidate that has even a distant relationship with the PPP or the President will be chosen over those that have no connection whatsoever to the PPP but do have formidable qualifications.
Whoever is the writer of that Friday Peeping Tom must understand that this is not the way to achieve development. This kind of politics does not produce great leaders.
If Bharrat Jagdeo does not transform Guyana in phenomenal ways and just passes on unnoticed in Guyanese history, for me he will remain as the president that did the most to destroy the University of Guyana .
In a forthcoming column, I will relate to Peeping Tom how Jagdeo can still become the best president that we would have had, even if the economy does not become a success by the time he demits office. There are a million ways to become a historically great leader.