-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.
