Bharrat Jagdeo had taken the PPP up the creek, and he must now show the maturity to bring them down. He is not the first Leader of the Opposition who found himself in this situation. Hopefully he will not be the first to crash and burn.
Jagdeo began his journey up the creek in May, 2015. After the PPP was defeated in the 2015 elections, Jagdeo was convinced GECOM Chairman, Dr. Steve Surajbally, did not do enough to help the PPP. He declared no confidence in Dr. Surajbally, and demanded his resignation. Dr. Surajbally complied.
For some reason Jagdeo concluded the process for selecting the GECOM chairman allowed him to be the sole arbiter as to who should be chairman. According to him, the President was compelled to select someone from his list, regardless of how the President felt about that person. Well he was wrong, and the President appointed Justice James Patterson.
Jagdeo went to court to challenge Justice Patterson’s appointment, and this took him further up the creek. At the last minute Jagdeo recognized his dilemma, and asked the court to allow Justice Patterson to continue as Chairman until after elections, even if his appointment was found to be improper. The CCJ did not do that, and Patterson resigned. Jagdeo now had a problem. He was clamouring for elections, but there was no GECOM chairman.
When Justice Claudette Singh was appointed Jagdeo when further up the creek. If Justice Patterson was still chairman, Jagdeo could have been raising hell about the February 2020 timeline for elections. He could have claimed that Justice Patterson is a Government tool, given the circumstances of his appointment. However, Justice Singh is beyond reproach, and Jagdeo is firmly up the creek. Here is how.
Bharrat Jagdeo conceived the NCM to avoid the cleansing of the voters list. He declared the government illegal, and vowed he will not return to Parliament to extend the theoretical life of the government. Now that the list is being cleansed, and President Granger has announced March 02, 2020 as election day, Jagdeo is in a bind. GECOM requires additional funds for the elections, and only Parliament could allocate these funds. Also, for the President to formally call elections, the Parliament, by a two-thirds vote, must remove the Government from the caretaker mode.
Jagdeo now finds himself in the situation where he is protesting for elections, but is now refusing to do what is necessary for the elections to be held; returning to Parliament. Soon sympathy for his cause will begin to wane, and he will lack the moral platform to appeal to the donor community.
The irony is that Jagdeo is using the wrong playbook. He is using the 1990 playbook. However, on that occasion the PPP was demanding the postponement of the elections, and tactics to disrupt the holding of elections were necessary. Then he could have refused to go Parliament to allocate funds, but not now. Jagdeo is up the creek.
Jagdeo must now show leadership and maturity. In 1975 Dr. Jagan declared critical support for the PNC government. In 1998 and 2001, Mr. Desmond Hoyte signed the Hernando Herdmanston Accord, and the St. Lucia Statement, respectively. In 2006 Robert Corbin abandon the “no verification, no elections” campaign, and when to elections. Jagan, Hoyte, and Corbin demonstrated maturity, and leadership. All of them faced strong internal opposition to their actions, but they had the stature within the parties to gain acceptance of their decisions.
It is time for Jagdeo to abandon the “buse down and cuss down” behavior and return to Parliament. This is the only way we could have the elections he is clamouring for.