The PPP Congress has come and gone. To the disappointment of PPP grandees, it may not qualify for the greatest show on earth, not even in Guyana, but it was a spectacle. There was a skit that insulted teachers, a leader who sees himself as a dancing master, in his own head, and with every rollicking step that he took. Welcome to paradise at the Arthur Chung Convention Center on the East Coast Demerara, with the main event left for beyond the last day, i.e., the identification of those for the PPP’s hallowed inner circle, the Executive Committee.
That most watched and long-awaited of developments held back to build the required level of suspense, it was a fun time for the specially chosen and called of the PPP. There was nobody who had a better time than the greatest son of Guyana, one Bharrat ‘Call me Exxon’ Jagdeo. The biggest farce, all part of the comedy was the voting for those 35 members of the party’s Central Committee (and the trailing 5), and this is what I lay on the public table. Twist it or tangle it, that voting had absolutely no relationship to what is considered ‘free and fair.’ I would make the case for fear, but about what is fair, count me out, among the “naysayers” and “detractors.” If this means that I am due a national award for herculean efforts, I am still sorry, find somebody else, another type of Guyanese, anybody from that army of flunkeys and turkeys in the PPP. If they are not free to vote for the candidates of their choice for the Central Committee, then there is not much else that they are good for, can rise to the occasion. But the biggest revelation came from the PPP Executive Committee, the Fabulous Fifteen that made the final cut, with three more also rans. They really may as well be nonexistent, since they have no voting power. The fifteen apostles of Guyana’s apocalypse were glittering in what was conspicuous, what their presence registered, and what it also revealed. In a jagged and scratchy nutshell, it said so much about the PPP’s vision and condition of what it touts as ‘One Guyana.’ Oh, there is some of that satiny and slippery One Guyana. It was of who had no chance to stand up, who tumbled down, and who were counted out.
The PPP’s Executive Committee is 15 strong, when the men and women who made it to the party’s promised land are recognized, when scant attention is paid to the three runners up. It is, I think, another example of the true reality of the PPP up and down, and inside and outside. There are 12 men of heralded magnificence, and three women of what I suppose is the same significance. Three out of fifteen is a solid nod to the unsaid and unwritten 20% quota. There is a place set aside for women in the PPP, but not too many of them at such an elevated level. There are other places for them, of which the house is one, one particular section. No citizen should find fault with the PPP Executive Committee, as is now set in stone. It has all the substance of the Oneness and diversity that the group has always been propagandizing, selling, and pushing on the skeptical in this society. Of course, that is dependent on how diversity is defined. There are 12 Indian men, and there are 3 women. There is an Indian woman, an Amerindian woman, and a woman who I believe is of mainly Portuguese ancestry. I think it is a wonderful mixture of young and old, of the fanatical and more than a few who can only be thought of as unusual. At least, I think so. But I return to that peculiar issue of how the PPP as a party, as consisting of national rulers, as made up of individual contributors in the local and international realms define diversity. Genuine diversity, sincerity about real diversity? Where are the African Guyanese, if I may be so bold as to ask? If African Guyanese is an unknown entity, then to ensure that all are on the same page, where are the Black people in the Executive Committee of the People’s Progressive Party? Are Black people not considered to be progressive people, people worthy of the broad inclusivity of which the PPP has said it is the best, hands down?
Amid those 35 Central Committee members, there could not be found a single Black man, one Black woman, that is trusted enough to rise to the holy of holies in the PPP, for a presence in its Executive Committee? I have said from the first day, and over and over, that this One Guyana business is a farce and a fraud worked on the Guyanese people. To my intense regret, the PPP had to go out and prove me right. Sometimes, I can take being wrong. This is one of them. One Guyana is of one kind of people, 14 of one type and 1 that is of a close kinship. Like or kick it, but there it is. Kick me, but the composition of that Executive Committee remains, and it relays an extraordinarily ugly story of what this striptease, this falsehood, of One Guyana is all about, down to its diseased heart. Black people are good enough for photo ops, even good enough for a tight hug when everybody is looking on approvingly. Good enough to be used for certain public service jobs and the enticements of house lots, and imported music for public socializing. More photo ops to sell. But they are not good enough to be where One Guyana should be at its most sparkling brightness. Come in the yard, enjoy the barbeque. But understand that not a Black foot could step in the heart of the party house. Not one Black face. Not one Black pair of eyes in the Executive Committee space.