Janet Jagan – The First Female and 6th President of Guyana

Janet Rosenberg Jagan was the first female President of Guyana, serving from December 19, 1997, to August 11, 1999. She previously served as the first female Prime Minister of Guyana from March 17, 1997, to December 19, 1997. She was awarded Guyana’s highest national award, the Order of Excellence, in 1993, and the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Gold Medal for Women’s Rights in 1998. She was the wife of Cheddi Jagan whom she succeeded as President.

Early Life and Marriage

Janet in younger days | Image source: https://jagan.org

Janet Rosenberg was born on October 20, 1920, in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. into a middle class Jewish family. After high school, she attended University of Detroit; Wayne University; Michigan State College and Cook County School of Nursing.

In 1942, while working as a student nurse in Chicago, she met Cheddi Jagan an Indo-Guyanese dentistry student at Northwestern University. They were married the following year on August 5. They have two children and five grand-children. She came to British Guiana in December 1943 where she worked for 10 years as a dental nurse in Dr Cheddi Jagan Clinic.

Political Career

She became involved in the labor struggle and was a member of the colony’s first ever union, the British Guiana labor union in 1943. She worked along with labor leader, Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow, to organize domestics. Along with other women, they founded the Women’s Political and Economic Organization (later called W.P.O.).

Janet co-founded the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) with Cheddi and trade union leaders Ashton Chase and Jocelyn Hubbard in 1950. The PPP was Guyana’s first multi-racial political party. She was also the first woman to be elected to the Georgetown City Council. Three years later, she was elected to the House of Assembly as the deputy speaker.

Both Janet and Cheddi was jailed as political prisoners. From 1957-1961, she was appointed minister of labor, health and housing. After the death of minister of home affairs – Claude Christian in 1963, she became minister of home affairs and a member of the senate. In 1964, she resigned as minister in protest over incidents in Wismar. She warned the nations about elections rigging. She was also the editor of the PPP newspaper Mirror from 1973 to 1997.

Did You Know: According to LATIMES.COM

In 1963, Time magazine called her “the most controversial woman in South American politics since Eva Peron,” partly because she was a “strident Marxist” who many believed was the “brains and backbone” behind her husband’s leftist government.

Janet along with fellow journalists – Clinton Collymore, Moses Nagamotoo and Kellawan Lall, founded the Union of Guyanese Journalists (UGJ) and she became its first President from 1970-1997. After PPP ended a boycott of Parliament to protest against the rigging of the elections in 1973, she returned to the House as an opposition MP. She served in the House continuously, and was returned in 1980, 1985 and 1992. In April 1997 she was the longest serving member of Parliament (46 years).

After Guyana’s first free and fair elections in post -independent Guyana in 1992, she was designated First Lady of the Republic.  She was Appointed Chairperson of Castellani House Committee of Management – home of the National Art Gallery Collection; and Chairperson of National Commission on the Rights of the Child from 1992-1997. After the death of Cheddi, On March 17, 1997, Janet Jagan was sworn in as Guyana’s first woman Prime Minister and First Vice-President.

Appointment As President

Janet was the presidential candidate of the PPP in the December 1997 election. The PPP won the election, making her the first female President of Guyana and commander-in-chief of armed forces as well as the countrys first Jewish and first U.S. born leader and also the first female president in South America.  Due to health reasons, she resigned on August 8, 1999. Serving only a mere two years.

She was awarded Guyana’s highest national award, the Order of Excellence, in 1993, and the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Gold Medal for Women’s rights.

Even though she resigned, she still remained active in the PPP. At their 29th Congress, she received the second highest number of votes (671) in the election to the party’s Central Committee, which was held on August 2, 2008. She was then elected to the PPP Executive Committee, in addition to being elected as editor of the PPP paper Thunder, on August 12, 2008.

Her Death

Janet Jagan passed away due to an abdominal aneurysm on March 28, 2009, in Belem, Brazil. She was 88 years old. Her body was cremated on March 31, 2009 in Brazil.

She has long been involved with the literary and cultural life of Guyana. She has a few books under her belt such as “The Hill of Fire Glows Red”, “When Grandpa Cheddi was a Boy”, “Patricia, the Baby Manatee” (1995), “Anastasia the Ant-Eater” (1997) and “The Dog Who Loved Flowers”. She had long been a teller of stories to her children and grandchildren and was strongly concerned that Guyanese children should have books that reflected themselves.

Article References:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Jagan
• https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/thunderinguyana/janet.html
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Janet-Jagan
• https://jagan.org/Biography/JJ%20Bio/jj_biography.html