The People’s Progressive Party has proclaimed that following a meeting on Saturday of its Central Committee (CC) there will be no engagements in relation to unity talks with the government.
In the same breath, General Secretary of the PPP Clement Rohee stated that the CC, also as a collective, had decided to call for the “scrapping of the Ministry of Social Cohesion since its principal role is to act as a smokescreen to promote racial and political discrimination in favour of the APNU+AFC.
“The Central Committee rejected as hypocritical and self-serving the call by the APNU+AFC for national unity and for national unity talks with the PPP. The party, following ongoing consultations with its membership, has concluded that, at this time, when there is continuous witch-hunting, arbitrary dismissals and brazen termination of contracts of longstanding government employees and public servants, labelling party leaders and former government ministers as ‘thieves,’ the party’s membership is neither in the mood nor supportive at this time, to engage in any national unity talks with the APNU+AFC.”
He was asked by reporters to elaborate, but declined to name specific persons or positions that were affected.
Rohee declared that the party had received information that the Ministry of Citizenship was using the General Register Office to issue birth certificates to underage supporters allowing them to vote in the next elections.
Unity talks between the two parties were in limbo with both sides speaking to each other through the media. Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo had said that his party needed clarity on government’s national unity invitation as there are two conflicting proposals.
He said that initially President David Granger invited the PPP/C to be part of a national unity committee but subsequently Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo spoke of a government of national unity.
“…There is some ambiguity about what is being proposed …and do the conditions exist for this social cohesion, national unity talk?” he queried during a press conference at Freedom House in late September.
