The long overdue PPP congress will be held in the first week of May, the Party’s Executive Committee members have determined, General Secretary (GS) Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday announced.
“The Party’s Central Committee met; the executives met last Saturday and they decided, I think it is the first week of May that the Congress will be held,” Jagdeo yesterday said when asked by Stabroek News for an update on the event.
Jagdeo said that his position of General Secretary will also have to be determined by the party’s members as it would “be presumptuous of me to say I will be General Secretary” after the congress.
“I will decide to contest at that time but right now I am GS until those elections are held,” he stressed.
He said that committing to a role as General Secretary was tantamount to him saying that “I own this party” when everyone knows that party leaders are determined through voting. “I am General Secretary until that point in time,” he said.
Jagdeo had also previously said that that any decision to depart from the party’s founding Marxist-Leninist ideology will be a decision for members of that body.
“That is a question for Congress. The General Secretary of a party doesn’t/cannot alter the constitution of a party on his own. It is a question for congress,” Jagdeo had last year said when asked if plans were on stream for the removal of Marxism-Leninism from the party’s constitution.
“I have my positions and I am not going to, in the public domain, explore this. I will explore it at the appropriate levels of the party. We have consistently been a working class party. We are not wedded to ‘isms’. We want to make sure all of our people make progress, in this country. We want to work for poor people and get into the middle class of society. So any ‘ism’ whatsoever is inconsistent with that, it cannot continue to be the prevailing philosophy of our party,” he added.
Jagdeo said that ideological positions are for “armchair” discussions as government has to pragmatically and practically choose methods and ways to better the living standards of the poor. He said the party’s Congress will have to decide if it wants ideological principles to remain in its constitution. The 32nd Congress is overdue and according to the party’s constitution, it should have been held in 2019. The last PPP/C Congress was held in 2016 and another, as per guidelines of the party’s constitution should have been in 2019 but none has been held since. Jagdeo had in late March said that the Congress was delayed in part because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the party’s last Congress, held in Essequibo from December 17 to 19, 2016, Jagdeo was elected General Secretary of the party by secret ballot. That was the first time that Jagdeo had held the post of leader of the party.
He had secured the most votes (718) for the party’s Central Committee (CC), for which 35 members were elected; 98 votes ahead of Dr Frank Anthony (620), giving him a mandate to take the reins of the party. Long-serving executive member and current opposition Chief Whip, Gail Teixeira (583) emerged third.
Current President Irfaan Ali (511) who had placed fifteenth in 2013 came at number eight in 2016. There will be great interest in President Ali’s performance at this upcoming congress.
