Follow de leadah

Best leader?
Ah… how quickly do these bromances fade! Only the other day, right after Ralph Ramkarran quit the PPP in a fit of pique, he and Freddie Kissoon were throwing bouquets and kisses at each other. Kissoon complimented Ramkarran for his ‘masterful’ exegesis on corruption (in the PPP, of course) while he gushingly reported as to how “Ralph” waved to him while he (Kissoon) was on the picket lines. Oh… it was just too sweet.
So Ramkarran writes a piece daring to assert that the PPP’s been merely reacting to PNC’s bullyism all these years. He offered examples to illustrate his point. Here is Kissoon’s riposte: “It is one of the most shameless, disgraceful, propagandistic, unpolished and senseless essays ever written on this country’s history”… Whew!! And they complain about a “woman scorned”! Now far be it for us to get into the middle of what might just turn out to be a lover’s spat – if history is any judge in these matters, they might just decide to kiss and make up. But we’d just like to examine (interrogate) one of Kissoon’s more florid assertions: “The PNC has produced the best president of this country, far outstripping the achievements of all PPP Presidents.”Now Kissoon’s a bit ambiguous here – there have been two PNC presidents, Burnham and Hoyte. We know he’s been favouring Burnham lately, but Hoyte’s also received his share of kudos. So let’s take a look at one ‘accomplishment’ of these two fellas – one that has been well documented and accepted even by Kissoon.
Burnham rigged the elections of 1968, 1973, the referendum of 1978 and the elections of 1980 – the latter dubbed as being ‘crooked as barbed wire’ by the Caribbean Conference of Churches. We guess the PPP presidents suffer by comparison since they didn’t rig any elections! Hoyte, of course, also followed in his master’s trail by rigging the 1985 elections so well, that he awarded himself a majority far greater than Burnham had ever dared seize. But then we guess Hoyte had to make a point.
Kissoon’s been making much ado about Hoyte’s acceptance of the 1992 election’s results that saw the PPP takeing office. This ‘acceptance’ is touted as proof positive that Hoyte was the greatest thing since sliced bread. He completely ignores the fact that to stop committing a crime is not an act of virtue. Should we give the rapist a medal because he stops raping?
Carter’s push
But for a man who claims to have been to university, it’s incredible that Kissoon ignores the context and circumstances that dictated Hoyte’s ‘acceptance’ of free and fair elections. Right up there is the fact that the Cold War had been over since 1988. The Americans had signalled quite clearly that the PPP no longer posed a threat to its strategic interests. Meaning, in other words, that Hoyte couldn’t raise the “communist” bogeyman, for the U. S. turned a Nelson’s eye to the PNC’s rigging.
But even against this background, Carter had to read the riot act to Hoyte at the last moment as the results demonstrated that the PPP was going to win the elections. Hoyte was pushed screaming and kicking into his ‘acceptance’. And he yet extracted his pound of flesh. Cheddi told Carter that he wouldn’t go after the crimes of the PNC that had brought the nation to its knees in the previous 28 years. But rather than appreciating that magnanimous gesture, Hoyte was to launch his cries of ‘ethnic cleansing’; the ethnic riots of Jan 12, 1998 and most notoriously, the “Mo fyaah; slow fyaah strategy” that killed hundreds of innocents.
That’s “greatness” such as the PPP presidents can never match!
The other foot falls
Lloyd Singh, head of IPA – the pharmaceutical client of Ramjattan and friend of Glenn Lall behind their attacks on the NEW GPC, has finally come out of the shadows. More to come!