Ms Adreyanna Thomas last week penned a most reprehensible demand. I doubt Bharrat Jagdeo read the diatribe; he does not waste his time reading nonsense. I read the nonsense because someone highlighted it in a response. Among the many things Ms. Thomas said was that Jagdeo’s time came and went; and, essentially, he is now old news. But her demand that Jagdeo should just “go back to farming” most raised my ire. It is insulting to Jagdeo for sure. But Bharrat Jagdeo is more than capable of dealing with Thomas. He needs no help in that regard.
I am certain he simply laughed and dismissed it.
However, Thomas insulted farmers by insinuating that farmers have nothing useful to contribute, that farming is something that has no meaningful contributions to make in the development of our country. I will just leave this here: Farmers invest between $50B and $100B annually into Guyana’s economy. They should be celebrated, not denigrated.
A few weeks earlier, Ms. Thomas announced to the nation she would be a Presidential Candidate in 2025. I have always said that those who believe they can do a better job than those persons in leadership right now should run for leadership roles, including the presidency. I therefore encourage Ms. Thomas to pursue her ambition, but making a name for yourself by insulting others is the most reliable way to reduce and eliminate your chances of making any impact. Ms. Thomas has made an inauspicious start in her campaign for the presidency.
As for Bharrat Jagdeo, no politician at this time is more admired, liked and respected. It is an understatement to say he is a hero among the majority of Guyanese people. He is definitely a hero among PPP supporters. But even among non-PPP supporters, even among many diehard PNC supporters, Bharrat Jagdeo is respected. This much we do know: that had Bharrat Jagdeo been able to run for the Presidency in 2020, he would have won hands down. Everybody knows that were it possible for Bharrat Jagdeo to run for the Presidency anytime in the future, no one would be able to beat him.
This much we also know: that Ms. Thomas has never been, and never will be, able to match Bharrat Jagdeo.
Bharrat Jagdeo led Guyana as President for 12 years. Those 12 years remain today as the most productive years in Guyana’s entire history. This is in spite of the heinous efforts of the PNC to make Guyana ungovernable, to create chaos in our country. It was a period in which Guyana’s reputation internally grew, and in which Guyana’s modernisation began. Guyana began its march as a leader of the Low Carbon Development Strategy, and for this, Jagdeo earned the UN title as Champion of the Earth.
But lest we forget, as Minister of Finance and then continuing as President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo had one of his greatest successes, something people have often tended to overlook – his management of Guyana’s debt crisis. He took one of the world’s most indebted countries and created one of the most stable financial macroeconomic platforms. When he became Finance Minister, the country’s debt was more than 900% its GDP. Few countries have ever experienced such a debilitating debt crisis. He managed Guyana’s economy with this albatross around our collective necks. When he left office, Guyana went from one of the worst debt crises to one of the countries in the Caribbean and in the world with the lowest debt as a percentage of its GDP. From a debilitating 94% of Guyana revenue annually needed to service Guyana’s debt, Guyana moved to a country with among the lowest debt servicing %.
It was Jagdeo who spectacularly led the PPP’s comeback to Government after just a single term in Opposition. Not long before the PPP’s no-confidence motion against David Granger’s APNU+AFC Government on December 21st, 2018, Jagdeo led the PPP to one of the most resounding local government victories anywhere in the Caribbean ever. But that followed Raphael Trotman’s bellicose outburst in Parliament calling Jagdeo a relic of the past, Dr. Gloom and Doom etc. Jagdeo, I remembered, was not angry, was not dismayed; rather, he laughed at Trotman. And Thomas is no Trotman. The truth is Thomas is going nowhere in her ambition to be President. Nice try, trying to use Bharrat Jagdeo’s name to gain fame.
But this same Thomas had not a word to say when David Granger and his hapless crew tried clumsily to thief an election. When Granger’s gang tried to introduce voodoo mathematics in Guyana, trying to persuade the world that 33 is not more than 32, where was Thomas?
When Mingo, Lowenfield, Volda Lawrence and others were openly thieving the election in front of the world and in the presence of several former Prime Ministers from CARICOM and Africa, where was Thomas? I know where Guyana’s farmers were. They stood in solidarity and rejected Granger’s and APNU’s effort to thief the elections. When Ms. Thomas runs for the Presidency in 2025, she must know farmers stood for freedom and democracy, which allows her the honour of running for the Presidency.
