Guyana Election Watch: Is Public Stripping A PPP Political Tool?

By Dr. David Hinds

News Americas, PHOENIX, Arizona, Mon. April 27, 2015: I join with others in expressing utter disgust at Minister Ramsaran’s abuse of Sherlina Nageer. But I have to say that I am not the least surprised. For the last 23 years we– all of us–have allowed the PPP to criminalize others while they, the PPP, have used the cover of the government and state to abuse and intimidate others without sanction. Some of us have been crying out as loud as we could, without success, for some acknowledgement that political abuse, violence and otherization have now become systemic in Guyana. Sometimes we are shut down by the press. WPA’s Professor Clive Thomas has long pointed to the criminalization of the State under the PPP.

The rhetoric of President Jagdeo and to a lesser extent, Minister Rohee and Dr. Luncheon along with the utterings of Minister Nandalall and now Minister Ramsaran should not be seen as isolated rantings. It is part of a political sub- culture that is grounded in a convergence of political arrogance, revenge and domination. It comes from the same place that those racially laced Chronicle editorials came from. It is for that reason that I cannot accept the qualified and measured condemnations coming from Presidents Ramotar and Jagdeo and the PPP women. Until they repudiate the culture of abuse, arrogance and domination that has taken root in their party and the government and state it oversees, they should be dismissed as insincere.

One of my Buxton Elders just drew my attention to the stripping part of Minister Ramsaran’s attack on Ms. Nageer. He threatened to have his women strip Ms. Nageer. Without diminishing the gender significance of the minister’s attack on the sister, let us, for a moment, move the conversation beyond the attack on womanhood. When a government minister–a person in authority—speaks about collective political action in that way, the society must take notice. Are we to understand that PPP women are now being trained in the art of public stripping as a political tool? Did the crowd in front of the court have instructions to do more than peaceful protest? Clearly from the Minister’s utterings he was there as a PPP official leading the protesters. This is not the first time we are hearing of stripping. Let us cast our minds a bit further back. Last year a male rice farmer from Essequibo was reportedly stripped while protesting. Is there more in the mortar? I have my strong suspicions.

Minister Rohee has sternly warned the Coalition, and by extension its supporters, that there would be big trouble if they rig the election. In other words, if the PPP loses it would mean the elections were rigged. And there would be trouble.  We shall soon find out.

Dr. David Hinds, a political activist and commentator, is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Caribbean and African Diaspora Studies at Arizona State University. More of his writings and commentaries can be found on his YouTube Channel Hinds’ Sight: Dr. David Hinds’ Guyana-Caribbean Politics and on his website www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com