A man of the people

As we reported on April 5th in our daily edition, after great speculation and a widening, democratic process of presidential candidate selection, the PPP’s Central Committee unanimously chose their general secretary, economist Donald Ramotar, to be their standard bearer in the general elections, scheduled for later this year.

Ramotar is no newcomer to the Guyanese political scene. He joined the PPP in 1967 at the age of 17; and as an employee of the party’s commercial venture, GIMPEX, in Georgetown, he would have been in the thick of politics by the 1968 elections. To be appointed manager of Freedom House by 1975, at the age of 25, meant that he had earned the confidence of Cheddi Jagan and the other senior leaders over most of his peers. He would have been in the eye of the proverbial storm during the fateful 1973 elections.

In 1977, when a wide swath of the party, led by Ranji Chandisingh, crossed the floor and joined the PNC, Ramotar remained with the PPP; and, in fact, in 1979, was elected to the party’s central committee, and then the executive committee, in 1983. Those were tumultuous times in the history of the country, and treacherous years for the major opposition party. It was a time of bannings, a time of jailings, and a time of protests. In the PPP’s internal programme of leadership development, Ramotar was then given exposure to the international scene — not as a student buried in classrooms and books, but as a member of the editorial council of the magazine “Problems of Peace and Socialism” whereby he worked in the Eastern bloc for five years, to 1988. He therefore understands how the international order functions.

That hard-earned perspective was harnessed to the local cause when he served as the International Secretary of the Guyana Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU), between 1988 and 1993. It was during that period, when the struggle for free and fair elections was intensified and eventually won, that Ramotar’s internationalist outlook proved invaluable, as did his groundings with the sugar workers. Once the party had won the election in 1992 and was returned to government, Ramotar was appointed executive secretary of the PPP.

It is vital to understand the thinking behind this move by Dr Cheddi Jagan, and the later one by his successors in 1997, when Ramotar was made General Secretary of the PPP. In the world-view of Dr Jagan, the party, its work and its relationship with the people – the responsibility of Ramotar – were as important as the party’s overseeing governance of the state. The success in the latter task was impossible without the solidification of the former.

Ramotar’s parliamentary experience is emblematic, and offers some possible insight into his style and substance, not only in the upcoming hustings, but in his presidency if, as widely predicted, the PPP wins the next elections. His presentations have always been cogent but never doctrinaire; laced with facts that betray his training in economics, but grounded in the concerns of the average Guyanese, for whom he has struggled for so long. However, it has been his good-natured banter with the opposition that suggests that, while he can be a formidable political opponent, the level of vitriol might be lowered so as to encourage better relations across the benches. As a member of the key Economic Relations Committee in the reformed Parliament, he would contribute a unique perspective, based on experience in working with the opposition for the development of Guyana.

The success of the PPP under the Jagdeo regime in stabilising the economy and bringing it to the cusp of exponential growth needs a particular style of leadership at this moment, one that can inspire all Guyanese to put their shoulders to the wheel and move ahead. Ramotar’s humble beginning from the Essequibo River, out of a family that combines all the peoples of this land, can stimulate that unity of purpose, not through fancy rhetoric, but through who he is: a man of the people.