| Former Central Executive member of the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Ralph Ramkarran,Cheap NFL Jerseys, has detailed his final moments as a member of that party, saying that the last straw was when he was accused of being untrustworthy.In his now weekly article posted last evening on his website, conversationtree.gy, the former two-time Speaker of the National Assembly also said that hours after his resignation, on June 30, last year, senior officials of the PPP were more concerned about the negative publicity rather than his departure.Ralph RamkarranNext weekend, the PPP is heading to Berbice to hold its first national Congress without the presence of the any of the Jagans. It will also be the first time that Ramkarran, and his wife Janet, will be absent too since 1974.The party, which lost its voting majority in the National Assembly in the November 2011 General Elections for the first time in its 20-year reign, has been facing one crisis after another, including cuts to the National Budget and blocking of a number of major projects, including the flagship Amaila Falls hydro-electric and expansion of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport.Last week, in response to a number of stinging criticisms, the party said that Ramkarran never raised the issue of corruption while he was making a bid to become the Presidential Candidate in the lead-up to the 2011 elections, a charge that the lawyer has denied.Ramkarran, in the article titled “The Day I Resigned From The PPP”, disclosed that shortly before that last meeting,Discount NFL Jerseys, he had written an article on pervasive corruption in Guyana. On June 29th, there was a Party Executive meeting where he was met with hostilities from party members which appeared planned “by willing and practised hands”.UntrustworthyIt was at the end of that meeting that he was “gratuitously and irrelevantly accused of being untrustworthy. After forty years in the leadership of the PPP,Cheap World Cup Jerseys 2018, such an accusation was about as much as I could bear.”“Not after two decades, the 1970s and 1980s, during the most frightening political conditions in our country, discussing ultra sensitive matters in the ultra secure group of the leadership, in ultra secure conditions,NFL Jerseys China Online, given the most confidential information and (legal) tasks by that group and never found wanting. I erupted and there was loud talk. I left the meeting after a refusal to withdraw the accusation.”The meeting so badly affected him that he remained silent after returning home and his family thought he had suffered a stroke.Immediately after breakfast, on June 30h, he made the decision to quit the party. “I knew that the time had come for me to sever my fifty-year formal connection with the PPP, which went even further back into childhood.”Ramkarran said that his connections included not only the Executive and the Central Committee, but from the Party itself. “I did not speak to or consult anyone but realised that I could take no more of the years of hostility, abuse and torment that had been heaped upon me, starting in 1997, subsiding for a few years, then recommencing with studied vindictiveness and renewed venom in 2005 at the Essequibo Congress, lasting I later learnt, up to shortly before President (Donald) Ramotar was sworn in.”He said that he had thought that the hostilities would change with the elections being over. However, matters got worse.“A Cabinet had been appointed, but I was to learn that my exclusion was demanded by some, ostensibly because I did not campaign, but in reality because of the lingering hostility and vindictiveness.”He returned to writing for The Mirror, the party’s newspaper and even did outreaches.“I even allowed my name to be put up for Speaker, which I advised was a losing proposition.”OutspokenRamkarran, who said earlier this week that the party grew increasingly intolerant to criticisms of corruption, believed that it was not merely his “alleged contrariness” that got him into trouble, but his outspokenness too.“My presence,Cheap NFL Jerseys Wholesale, my independence, the fact that I spoke up and disagreed sometimes, and when insulted did not take it quietly, these could not be tolerated. It dawned upon me that I had completely alienated myself from the ruling cabal and had ceased to be seen as a team player among that group because I was not obsequiously compliant.”Ramkarran steered away from naming the party officials who felt that way but indicated that the “new” ruling group had imposed a culture of implacable hostility to internal or external views contrary to those of its own.After sending his resignation in, there were calls from a number of friends but none who were at the executive meeting.“No one would have been asked to call if the draft press statement was not included with my resignation, indicating my intention to go public. They could not have cared less about my resignation and would have welcomed it, if done quietly. Their only concern was the negative publicity.”He said that later that day,China Jerseys, he sent a copy of the press statement to a private newspaper.On his resignation, Ramkarran said he was not merely forced to leave a room. “I was degraded so often that this time it could only mean that I was being kicked out of a treasured life of shared commitment and endeavour, achievements and setbacks, joys and sorrows, arguments won and lost, great debates in the Cheddi Jagan era, playing a role in the direction of the country, great friendships and fraternal comradeships.”Snatching this life and these memories away in such a vulgar manner was a punishment more cruel than any that could have been devised, and devised it was, awaiting only the opportunity to spring it.”Despite an apology from the party, it was obvious that it was a limp one.“The limp attempt at an apology in my absence, too little too late, could not disguise and did not address the real problems as outlined above. The steps which could have stopped my impending resignation, or reversed it even after it became public, were not taken.” |
