-as 32nd party congress opens
-slams sterile `isms’ debate
Addressing the 32nd Congress of the PPP yesterday, General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo declared that the party will focus on private sector growth and political pluralism without prejudice to the working people’s outlook that has guided it since its founding in 1950.
He accused critics of the party of wanting to draw it into a sterile ideological debate about the `isms’.
“Today many people want to drag us into a sterile political debate, ideological debate, and they’re stuck in a different era. They want us to debate the isms, capitalism, socialism, Marxism and really I say sterile because this party has had one ideology from its beginning a working class ideology that is reflected in our constitution. If you read the preamble to the constitution of the People’s Progressive Party it says political pluralism, ideological pluralism, political democracy, cultural diversity and racial equality. Now this was the constitution of this party from its inception, listen carefully: ideological pluralism, political pluralism, cultural diversity and racial equality. Why do we have to all the time be defensive about what we want? That’s our life in this party that’s in the constitution so when we say our policies are pro poor when we say that the pervasive, the key focus of this government will be a pro poor one that is reflective of our ideology, a working people’s ideology”, he said.
He then made a case for a pro-business approach which analysts say the party has largely aligned with since the passing of the Jagans, the founders of the party, who were firmly Marxist in their outlook.
“… but does that mean that we can’t be pro development or pro private sector at the same time? … It’s a false way of placing the question because …our constitution mandates us to focus on development and therefore as of a necessity we have to focus on private sector growth and the political pluralism that we talk here so … I am going to put that debate to rest here today because you will see every week articles coming out about what is the PPP doing and they want us to go back to the terminology of 60 years ago. We don’t have to do that to define who we are we are a working class party. We believe in the development of all Guyanese. We believe in racial equality we believe in cultural diversity we want prosperity for all of our people”, he asserted.
Speaking at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre where hundreds had gathered bedecked in the party’s colour of red, Jagdeo lavished praise on President Irfaan Ali and said that if the party’s founder Dr Cheddi Jagan had been alive he would be proud of what the PPP had achieved in terms of racial unity.
“I am proud to say that we are led by a young leader, Irfaan Ali who came out of this party. I know Irfaan Ali well. Irfaan Ali is one of the most courageous persons that I have ever met and also in my tenure he was one of the most efficient ministers we’ve had. He could have handled large scale tasks easily and you see him bring that skill into government because of his dynamic energetic leadership.
“Now … we had many naysayers when we chose Irfaan Ali and Irfaan Ali thank you for proving all of them wrong…(a) young leader who has many, many more years to lead us and to serve the people of this country and we’re proud of him”, he said to applause.
Jagdeo, who is expected to be returned to the post of General Secretary also invoked the name of Cheddi Jagan with respect to the current composition of the party.
In the presence of former President and PPP General Secretary Donald Ramotar and other long-serving members of the PPP, Jagdeo said “…so on fighting for racial and religious harmony that’s key to this party and that is important. I think Cheddi Jagan if he was standing here would have been the proudest person in this room as I am as General Secretary of the party…throughout our history we fought for racial unity in this country even in the worst period after the externally instigated riots by particularly …the Americans and the British in the Cold War era, Cheddi Jagan if you listen to his speeches he never gave up on racial unity he saw it as a historic mission of the People’s Progressive Party. And why did people stay away from us? They stayed away from us because the PNC has been very clever they have used a combination of lies and falsehoods to keep people away from us by redefining what this party is and that’s why today we are going to robustly challenge that notion. We are defining this party as to what it is now today. We are ensuring that all these lies are answered on a daily basis on a weekly basis. Sometimes they think we are thin skinned or we are too pervasive. They say that we are too incessant that you (must) ease off a bit why you have to be fighting all the time. Well we will fight for racial unity because we believe in it and the reason they don’t want us to fight this way is because they want to keep people fed up with their lies”.
In a tented hall, Jagdeo also spoke the number of indigenous delegates present – a key constituency for any party hoping to win general elections due next year.
“I am so proud that we have grown this party. We always had Indo Guyanese supporting the PPP however we have grown this party in a major way. Nearly one third of our delegates are from the hinterland at this conference. We have grown our party… Guyanese of mixed descent and it’s growing in the Afro Guyanese communities and I am so proud of that. Cheddi Jagan always wanted this because he knows that this party would be invincible if we reflect the full gamut of the country and he fought for that and it’s happening and so we will continue to fight for it we will fight to expand the rights of the people we did it many times before. We passed under the PPP one of the most progressive constitutions in the world”, he declared.
Delivering volleys of criticisms periodically at the opposition and referencing the 2020 elections debacle, he also reached out to APNU supporters.
“…we believe for those out there who are talking, who are not here who are listening to us. Some of them are sympathetic to us. Many are here in Guyana and some are in the diaspora and then you have a whole slew of APNU people glued to the television now listening to us too and they detract (from) us, so I’m speaking to them too. What do we believe in? We believe in equality of opportunities. We believe in the equitable distribution of the resources of the state. So President Ali just made that point. He spoke about how this gets reflected in our budgets and in the oil and gas sector. If that’s a burning question on your mind, yes that will happen in the oil and gas industry too and we will create and we have started creating a framework not only to ensure that that happens but by investing in the things that matter most to poor people: education and health care and better housing and community infrastructure and job creation”, he said.
Jagdeo said that the party supports the separation of powers and an independent judiciary though sometimes “this belief is tested”. He added that had the country not joined the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) the riggers of elections would have remained in power today. He said that Forbes Burnham’s entire objective of exiting the UK Privy Council was to prevent external review and to leave this with the Guyana Court of Appeal.
“Let me say to you that had we not taken the decision to go back to the CCJ or to join the CCJ… Burnham came out of the access to the privy council to remove us from the access to the privy council because he did not want an external review should there be rigged elections in Guyana. If we did not take that decision in the early 2000s and joined the CCJ, this party would not have been in power today because the local courts ruled that basically (former Chief Election Officer Keith) Lowenfield had the right to disenfranchise 175,000 persons based on this alien-to- our-constitutions-and-our-laws concept and valid votes totally alien, a flawed decision that was thrown out by the CCJ without I don’t even think they had to study it to throw it out”, Jagdeo said.
He also professed the party’s belief in a free press and a plurality of opinions though he took aim at unnamed Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs).
“… we support NGOs. We support them because many perform a useful task but when they serve as a means of division when they believe that an unelected few can arrogate to themselves that their voice must be the voice, must be the monopoly voice and they are … the only thing that matter in a democracy then we will fight that to our very core because we are a political party that will never ever allow that to happen. Those ideas are not consistent with a free society and we want to build a free Guyana where our children can grow, flourish and develop their lives here in a condition that of freedom and plurality”, he said.
Jagdeo’s party and his government have been accused of targeting independent voices in civil society and employing persons to intimidate these voices.
The General Secretary also advanced the need to bridge the divide between hinterland and coastal opportunities.
“That is truly important to us. We believe we must eliminate differences in our people’s equality of opportunities: to education, on jobs for all of our people and prepare them for the future. That is why the focus on the hinterland, ensuring there is no coastal-hinterland divide. Indigenous people have suffered enormously in the past. Cheddi Jagan made this a priority by declaring a month-long celebration for indigenous people at times when they were treated as second class citizens in this country. We passed the new constitution, the Indigenous Peoples Commission, Amerindian land rights, the act that we enshrined a whole bundle of rights (in) but we have also invested heavily in the social development of the Hinterland communities and economic opportunities for hinterland people and expanding access to health care and education that are nonexistent. So you think it is by chance that we are the biggest party in the Amerindian community? It’s by hard work that the PPP did in the years it’s not by chance”, he said.
