PPP executive, Gail Teixeira says she is not aware of any date for the PPP congress which was postponed from last year.
“I am not aware of any date,” she said when contacted by Stabroek News yesterday.
She directed this newspaper to Freedom House. PPP Executive Secretary, Zulficar Mustapha, when contacted twice told Stabroek News that he was in a meeting and promised to return a call.
A subsequent call to his phone went unanswered and up to later yesterday afternoon, no call was received.
“We are still discussing the matter at the Executive level,” Mustapha had told Stabroek News earlier this month. “No date has been set as yet,” he had said. Last year August the PPP’s Central Committee agreed to postpone holding its constitutionally due 30th Congress to focus on the November 2011 general elections.
The congress would have seen a new executive being elected.
The current General Secretary is President Donald Ramotar. Prior to becoming president, he held the post of PPP General Secretary for a number of years. Last December, Teixeira told Stabroek News that Ramotar is likely to continue holding the post of PPP General Secretary until the party decides on the way forward. She had said that the party will have to decide whether Ramotar will hold onto the position like Dr Cheddi Jagan had even after he became president.
Ramotar became the PPP’s General Secretary following the death of Dr Jagan in 1997 and has served in that capacity since.
Teixeira had noted that since Dr Jagan’s death there had been a delinking of the head of the party and the presidency.
She noted that since Dr Jagan’s death, both Janet Jagan and Bharrat Jagdeo became president while not holding the post of party General Secretary.
Since the general election the party has had to face the loss of its parliamentary majority and has also had to address the stunning resignation of influential, long-time executive Ralph Ramkarran.
