General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has declared that the party is not worried about any competition from the opposition camp at next year’s elections.
“They gonna all get together and lose together,” Jagdeo said, referring to the apparent indecision of the opposition political parties to coalesce.
“We’re not worried about any candidates. Nigel Hughes or Norton or anyone else they may want to run as presidential candidate,” Jagdeo said, noting that “they have defined themselves already to this country and people don’t trust a word that they say.”
The A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), whose largest member is the Peoples National Congress (PNC), had merged with the Alliance For Change (AFC) in 2015 for the elections that year. The two parties had also jointly contested in the 2020 elections.
The AFC, however, formally broke its coalition with APNU back in December 2022. The revised Cummingsburg Accord, a political agreement between the two organisations, had provided for this separation.
At the time, the then AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan had indicated that the two political organisations would do their political work separately but work in parliament jointly.
PNC is currently lead by Aubrey Norton, AFC by Nigel Hughes and APNU by Vincent Henry.
None of the parties have announced any decision regarding coalescing for the 2025 polls.
In fact, Norton had said the PNC was considering contesting the elections independently, claiming that “we are a strong enough party that if we have to go and be one, we can do that.”
But Jagdeo believes they will all coalesce.
“They were coalition partners all the time…they gonna get together. Anybody who has any sense know that they are gonna get together for the elections,” he said.
Meanwhile, Jagdeo has also reiterated that there will be no snap elections.
“How many times we have to say this,” the General Secretary expressed.
