DEATH OF FORMER PRESIDENT JAGAN TO HAVE MAJOR

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 GEORGETOWN 000192

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL PGOV GY
SUBJECT: DEATH OF FORMER PRESIDENT JAGAN TO HAVE MAJOR
POLITICAL IMPACT

REF: 08 GEORGETOWN 490


1. (U) Summary: Former President of Guyana Janet Jagan died
in Georgetown on March 28, at the age of 88. A native of the
United States, she married future President Cheddi Jagan in
Chicago in 1943, immigrated to Guyana, and became a giant of
Guyanese history in her own right. She remained a highly
respected and powerful figure in the ruling People's
Progressive Party (which she helped found in 1950) until the
end, and her passing from the political scene will have
considerable impact on the PPP as the 2011 Presidential
elections draw closer. End Summary.


2. (U) The first female and foreign-born President of Guyana,
Janet Jagan, died in Georgetown on March 28, at the age of

88. A native of the United States who was born into a Jewish
family in Chicago, she met then-dental student Cheddi Jagan
in Chicago in 1942, married him, and moved to Guyana
permanently in December 1943. The Jagans went on to become
the most influential Guyanese political couple for more than
a half century. From the days of pre-independence British
Guiana, to the successful struggle for independence (achieved
in 1966),through several years in the political wilderness
during the Burnham dictatorship (1964-85),and culminating in
their respective terms as President (Cheddi from 1992 until
his death in March 1997; Janet from December 1997 until her
resignation for health reasons in August 1999),Janet was
universally acknowledged as Cheddi's equal partner. She has
thus been dubbed by numerous mourners in recent days as "The
Mother of the Guyanese Nation."


3. (U) Born just two months after the 1920 ratification of
the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution first guaranteed
women the right to vote in the United States, Mrs. Jagan was
a lifelong advocate of the rights and role of women in
society, politics, and government. She was also an avowed
Marxist, and remained openly distrustful of the capitalist
economic system in her later years. Having experienced what
she perceived as persecution by the United States government
during the Cold War, she renounced her U.S. citizenship in
the 1960s and routinely criticized U.S. foreign policy. In
recent years she expressed particular disgust with the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan, generally vocalizing her opinions
through a weekly newspaper column.


4. (U) Mrs. Jagan was perhaps best identified as the
matriarch of the political party she helped found in 1950,
the People's Progressive Party (PPP),which has held
executive and legislative power in Guyana since Cheddi Jagan
was elected President seventeen years ago. Her influence was
indisputable and decisive: when Mrs. Jagan resigned from the
Presidency in 1999 after just 20 months in power, she
engineered the surprising ascension to the Presidency of the
35-year old Finance Minister, Bharrat Jagdeo, who has since
been elected to two full terms. She remained a principal
powerbroker within the PPP up until her death, having been
reelected to her position on the PPP's oligarchic 18-member
Executive Committee just last August, and was widely believed
to be the leader of its more hardline, Communist-oriented
faction.


5. (U) Mrs. Jagan's passing from the political scene has
already sparked much debate about the implications for the
PPP, particularly considering the looming Presidential
elections in 2011 in which President Jagdeo is ineligible to
run again due to term limits. Considering the PPP's inherent
demographic advantage with its largely Indo-Guyanese support
base, the party still stands as the clear early favorite. But
the loss of Mrs. Jagan's influence has shaken up the status
quo, cementing this as the most wide-open and consequential
party nomination contest in Guyanese political history.


6. (SBU) Comment: The PPP's Executive Committee will make the
ultimate decision about who will be the PPP's Presidential
candidate, giving the people who sit on the Committee a
distinct advantage over those who do not. The two figures to
emerge from the party's last Congress in August 2008
(reftel),PPP General Secretary Donald Ramotar and
Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud, remain the principal
contenders. The leadership vacuum left by Mrs. Jagan's death
has left the door open for Ramotar to assert himself more
within the party hierarchy, which leads most observers to
assume that Ramotar now holds the advantage. But Mrs. Jagan's
death could also recalibrate factions in unpredictable ways:
will President Jagdeo move closer to the party he ostensibly
leads, but from which he has kept some distance recently?
This scenario would likely be an advantage to Minister
Persaud, Jagdeo's chosen protege. Could Speaker of the
National Assembly, party stalwart Ralph Ramkarran, be a
potential compromise candidate? Can another possible

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candidate from outside the Executive Committee braintrust
find an opening? The race begins anew. End Comment.

Jones