I STARTED reading a letter captioned, “PPP is like an ungrateful dog to the people” written by the Vice-Chairman of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Moses Nagamootoo, and my temperature surged to almost boiling point.
In an interview with Kaieteur News, Nagamootoo said the Government “…will be spending. They will probably commit themselves to activating certain programmes to show that they care. So what is going to happen is a campaign of social bribes. They will focus on Amerindian areas and other communities, for it is all about catching as many votes as it can now. They will also use state media to the maximum to sell the party, because at this point, the Government is terribly wounded. The PPP is more concerned about recovering lost ground.”
These accusations are baseless, reckless, irresponsible, and cannot be further from the truth; and I’m disgusted by the garbage spewed by this “ungrateful dog”. Long before he aspired to run for President, Donald Ramotar had built the distinguished reputation of being a people person. That did not happen overnight; nor did he suddenly begin caring for the underprivileged in our country after he won the Presidency.
And the PPP has always been the Party that fought to secure a better quality of life for every Guyanese. They have a proven track record to be proud of. Unfortunately, people like Moses only see the progress that’s taking place throughout Guyana as a threat to their own political ambition and aspirations.
Nagamootoo knows only too well that it is the PPP that he was part of that rescued Guyana from bankruptcy under the PNC. Nagamootoo knows that the PPP is the same caring Party that he was a part of most of his adult life. But Nagamootoo is a bitter man; he believes he was robbed of his inheritance to lead the People’s Progressive Party; an inheritance bestowed upon him by the late former President and Founding Father of the PPP, Dr. Cheddi Jagan.
But he lied! This never happened the way he described it, and when the leadership of the PPP was not bestowed upon him, this egotistic opportunist jumped at the opportunity to team up with Khemraj Ramjattan, a disgruntled former PPP member who had been kicked out of the Party, to form the Alliance For Change (AFC), in the hope of taking votes from the PPP.
This they managed to do very successfully in 2011. ‘Neemakharamism’ is a recurring theme in the speeches and writings of Moses Nagamootoo, ever since he decamped, and disembarked the PPP Juggernaut, and jumped aboard the AFC ‘Balahoo’.
The PPP is indeed the Juggernaut of Guyana’s Politics, from its inception in 1950 to the present, and will continue to be so in the foreseeable future. The Party is grounded in the trials and travails of the ordinary Guyanese People the poor; the voiceless; the down-trodden; the under-privileged; the workers; the farmers; the fishermen; and the market-vendors. It was not until the coming of the PPP that a voice was given to the Guyanese people, first by Dr. Cheddi Jagan, and then by the Party itself, which he helped to found.
The AFC, on the other hand, is like a make-shift ‘Balahoo'; set up to shelter the opportunists, the discarded and the rejects. The specific task of this entity is to eat into the support base of the PPP, causing them to lose its governing majority, thereby helping to usher in the PNC, now calling themselves APNU; the same Party that ran the affairs of the country for 28 years, and by 1992, ruined the economy, the country and caused greater division among our people.
The AFC knows that it stands very little chance of winning power legitimately through elections, but Ramjattan is hopeful that he can outfox David Granger, and become the next Leader of the Opposition. Thus, the opportunists in the AFC are more interested in feathering their own nests, rather than looking after the interests of the Guyanese people.
For Moses Nagamootoo to be calling the PPP “an ungrateful dog” is himself displaying all the qualities of an “ungrateful dog”. Moses Nagamootoo has drawn his strength and sustenance for more than 50 years from the PPP. It was the PPP that took this ingrate under its wings, cajoled and nurtured him, given him name-recognition, exposure and chances in life that he otherwise would never have had.
Like the character in his book, he would have been fetching a basket on his head, going from house to house, village to village, selling fish, returning to his shack in the evenings, dancing to the beat of the ‘Tappu’ in his drunken stupor. He owes his everything that he is today to the PPP.
Who is the ungrateful one here? You decide. Nagamootoo must be a very a troubled soul. Hendree is long overdue for his cure! He has betrayed the people of Whim, and has now given back to the PPP that which they had lost in 2011: Overwhelming support for the PPP/C Administration.
HARRY GILL