The results of yesterday’s elections for the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Central Commit-tee are to be known today and will give an insight on who will be the General Secretary of the party.
The position is currently held by Clement Rohee but sources say it is possible that Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo will contest the position when it comes up for election sometime next year.
Yesterday’s voting would have been pivotal to the contenders for the General Secretary post as they would have had to get as many of their supporters as possible on the Central Committee to influence the vote whenever it is held.
At the three-day Congress held at the Cotton Field Secondary School on the Essequibo Coast, Jagdeo, presented three resolutions, one of which is to support the decision by United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon regarding the way forward for the Venezuelan border controversy.
Ban has given Guyana and Venezuela one more year to resolve the border issue through mediation. Guyana had written last year to Secretary General seeking a juridical settlement to the controversy. He subsequently dispatched several missions to both Guyana and Venezuela to discuss the way forward and had promised to make a decision by November.
Another resolution saw Jagdeo calling on the international community to assist in putting pressure on the relevant authorities for the speedy hearing of the elections petition case before court. The PPP/C has challenged the results of the 2015 general elections.
According to sources, the third resolution, he mentioned, related to concerns about the Social Cohesion Ministry.
The party filed the petition to contest the results of the May 2015 general and regional elections, claiming it had been rigged in favour of the APNU+AFC coalition government.
At the opening session of the congress on Saturday, Jagdeo, who is also the Leader of the Opposition, had urged members to work hard to return the party to power and to use the time at the Congress to fix the things that led to the party becoming the opposition.
“We need to look at ourselves; two days we would have to talk about what went wrong and we must have an honest assessment. Then we can fix the problems that led us to opposition,” he said.
Without elaborating, Jagdeo added, “We know about the stealing, the stealing took place on a massive scale but that’s not the only reason we are in opposition today and we need to fix those too.”
