Jagdeo looks forward to living ‘normal life’

Former President Bharrat Jagdeo on December 3 said he is looking forward to living a normal life as he demitted office officially on December 3, following the inauguration of the country’s new president, Donald Ramotar.

Speaking to the media after the auspicious occasion, Jagdeo, who served as president for 12 years, said, “I will enjoy myself in my home country for a while. I am looking forward to that.” He intends to travel the length and breadth of the country, do some writing amongst other cherished things he did not get to do during his tenure.

“I want to be here for a while, enjoy the things in Guyana that I miss, the going out without having to worry about calls being made, and just going to dinner, hanging out with friends, in the middle of the day walking down Regent Street which I haven’t done for ages, that sort of thing, connecting back to the country,” Jagdeo stated with a smile on his face.

“The worst part of the presidency for me was the loss of privacy, and the intrusion a little bit. I had to deal with it because it came with the presidency, but now I am free, I can do those things.”

Jagdeo added: “I may be writing a bit more… I want to enjoy this country, travel around, spend a week in a part of the country… I have tons of ideas that I would be putting down on paper.” The Champion of the Earth stated that one area he will write on is climate change, noting that there is a variety of areas to which he is giving thought.

He said he has three job offers thus far in the field of climate change, pointing out that they are very lucrative, but he has not “given [them] any serious thought as yet”. Jagdeo stressed that he is “looking forward to a quiet, different type of life”.

The former head of state said he will not be holding any formal position within the new government but will render assistance where necessary.

“I said to Donald Ramotar, I don’t want a formal position in the government, and I don’t want anything full-time; so if I were to assist, it will be on a pro bono basis and it would only be taking a part of my time, not anything full-time, to have an eight-to-four job in the government, I don’t want that anymore.”

Hung parliament

He noted that having a hung parliament limits the freedom of the ruling party, but said it should not prevent dialogue and collaboration.

“A hung parliament always does limit your degree of freedom of what you can or cannot pass, but many countries have operated with hung parliaments in the past and have done so successfully. You have heard in the president speech he is inclined to work with the opposition, of course, it depends on what they want, because often there is a trade-off, sometimes the demands are so great for working together that it becomes very difficult. Let us say it is a clean slate.” Jagdeo said he does not believe the PPP/C has lost support, contending that many of its supporters were complacent.

“I went out on Election Day and I saw people who hadn’t gone out, and they are saying to me ‘why we got to go out man, already we won the elections’… our people were overconfident and the low turnout in some of our areas affected us.” That aside, Jagdeo said: “Some of our logistics, too, were not here, the usual strong PPP/C logistics. You will see work done in all of these areas to ensure that if ever we have to go back to the polls, those things that we took for granted will be fixed.”

He added that the PPP/C also secured crossover votes, despite suffering from the worst of five storms.

“I don’t know how many people stayed away. I think we had significant cross over votes, I think the worse of five storms and we still emerged with 32 seats in Parliament. The worst of five storms hit us at the same time. We only have to fix one of those things and we are there, it could not have been Indian votes alone that got us that.”

Jagdeo had been president of Guyana since August 1999, prior to which he was minister of finance. He became the country’s youngest President after former President Janet Jagan became ill and resigned.

During Jagdeo’s tenure, he signed into the country’s Constitution a two-term limit for presidents. He is the first president to demit office in accordance with that constitutional provision.