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P 031538Z APR 09
FM AMEMBASSY GEORGETOWN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7141
INFO RUCNCOM/EC CARICOM COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHMFISS/CDR USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL PRIORITY

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 
 
GEORGETOWN 00000192  002 OF 002 
 
 
candidate from outside the Executive Committee braintrust 
find an opening? The race begins anew. End Comment. 
 
Jones