The issue of secret balloting to determine the PPP’s presidential candidate remains unresolved with party General Secretary Donald Ramotar yesterday, reiterating that this would be decided by the party at its leadership meetings.
Presidential candidate contender Ralph Ramkarran has been adamant that secret balloting has been part of the PPP’s tradition in cases where there is more than one candidate for party offices and he has repeatedly called for this to be honoured in deciding the party’s front man for this year’s general elections.
However, at the PPP’s year end news briefing last month, Ramotar had stated that the party is to decide on what system is used even as he stated that it had never gone the secret ballot route to decide a presidential or prime ministerial candidate. Ramkarran had responded that that was the case because those elected were the only nominees and were thereby elected by acclamation. The leaders in question were the late Jagans and incumbent Bharrat Jagdeo, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term.
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday, the General Secretary maintained that the issue was still to be settled. “When we reach that state we will cross it and as I had mentioned at the press conference the meetings themselves will decide these things. The party will decide all of these things … at meetings that we have. So I am not pronouncing on this one way or the other. I’m not saying that there will be no secret ballot or there will be secret ballot,” he explained.
Ramkarran, in a letter to this newspaper last month, stated that voting is conducted by secret ballot in all cases where elections in the PPP are contested. “For example, since 1950, elections at Congress in the earlier period for the General Council, officers and the executive, and in later years for the Central Committee, have always been conducted by secret ballot. There was never a vote taken as to whether these elections should be conducted by open voting,” he stated.
Ramotar has stated that no one in the party should feel inhibited by open voting in the party. “Our party is not a party where people should feel inhibited or afraid of nobody. What kind of party would we have if people are afraid to express their opinions and views in the party? Then we wouldn’t have a properly functioning organisation at all, so I don’t see that that’s a problem.”
The PPP has said that it intends to use its traditional selection process to decide on the candidate and allow for the nomination/expression of interest by interested individuals, deliberations at the level of the Executive Committee, and subsequent approval by the Central Committee (CC). The approved candidate will then be announced to the membership through regional conferences.
More than 30 people constitute the CC which will have that final say in who becomes the party’s presidential candidate. Those who have publicly declared interest in being the candidate are Ramotar, Ramkarran, Clement Rohee and Moses Nagamootoo. Stabroek News has been reliably informed that there is a push to have Robert Persaud enter the race but the agriculture minister has made no public pronouncements to date on his intentions.
The members of the CC who will pronounce on those aspirations include Jagdeo, Ramotar, Ramkarran, Rohee, Persaud, Roger Luncheon, Gail Teixeira, Nagamootoo, Navin Chandarpal and Indra Chandarpal.
The others are Clinton Collymore, Frank Anthony, Komal Chand, Ganga Persaud, Hydar Ally, Zulfikar Mustapha, Anil Nandlall, Ali Baksh, Bheri Ramsaran, Irfaan Ali, Jaffar Ali, Harripersaud Nokta, Ulric Ramanah, Neil Kumar, Jennifer Westford, Cyril Belgrave, Dharamkumar Seeraj, Kellawan Lall, Pauline Sukhai, Reepu Daman Persaud, Moti Lall, Harrinarine Baldeo, Mitra Devi Ali and Shirley Edwards.