Jagdeo gets failing grade for his stewardship as Guyanese President

Bharrat Jagdeo has got a failing grade from the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), which has said in a report that the legacy of the Guyanese leader's terms in office is “stagnation, violence, corruption, arch-sectarianism, and unfettered crime."

Read the report: Guyanese President Leaves a Tattered Legacy

The report was prepared by Research Associates Robert Cavooris and Elcin Chang.

“Now that Jagdeo has announced that he will not seek a third term in the upcoming August election he may well ask, as a New York mayor once did, “How did I do?” The answer, in this instance, must be “terribly”,” the autho0rs noted in a statement.

"Jagdeo could only receive the lowest of marks from any independent evaluation. Through his tolerance of crime, racism, and dismal social progress, President Jagdeo has turned in a fifth-rate performance as president of one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere.

"As the Guyanese use every strategy, legal and illegal, to flee the dysfunctional country, Jagdeo will go down in history as a man who did almost nothing for his nation while in office.”

COHA did give him credit for leading the country on a path of considerable economic growth in the last 10 years. 

It noted that the Guyanese economy, which is heavily dependent on the export of rice, timber, gold, bauxite, shrimp and sugar, has expanded at an average rate of three per cent over the past decade.

But Cavooris and Chang said despite the improvement in the economy, government officials have been either unwilling or unable to share this modest prosperity with average Guyanese citizens.

They supported their argument by pointing out that the allocation for education as a percentage of government spending is significantly lower than it was 10 years ago and warned that “there could be pernicious social consequences if education continues to take a back seat on the Guyanese agenda”.

On health care, COHA said there have been some positive results including an increase in life expectancy and a notable decrease in infant mortality, but it also said that there were still many outstanding issues.

The authors allege that violence in Guyana has ethnic undertones and party affiliation falls almost directly along ethnic lines, and accused Jagdeo of doing “almost nothing” to address the racial divisions in the country.

“Jagdeo has failed during his presidency to advance the freedom and fairness of Guyanese public life, or the inequities of the Indo-Guyanese dominated society,” they said.

“Increased economic growth is futile if it does not translate into a greater sense of prosperity within the entirety of society. Jagdeo’s two-term presidency fell woefully short on that point.”

The Research Associates concluded by saying that whoever replaces Jagdeo as President of Guyana must work to tackle these issues, and “clear the air of hopelessness when it comes to improving life” in that country.