…warns parties looking to challenge PPP at 2025 polls to “come right”
Reminding that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) is the only party to deliver on its promises of sustainable progress to the people, its General Secretary , Bharrat Jagdeo also warned all the parties looking to take it on at next year’s elections to “come right”.
The Vice President addressed a crowd of supporters at Babu Jaan, Port Mourant in Region Six (East Berbice- Corentyne) on Sunday, where the Party gathered to commemorate party founder and former President Dr Cheddi Jagan.
Noting the diversity in the crowd, a diversity Jagdeo described as A Partnership for National Unity’s worst nightmare, Jagdeo urged the crowd to look and compare the Party’s respective programmes and track records, not the ethnicity of the leaders.
“Look at this crowd. If you look at our activities, if you look at our programmes. And that’s the worst nightmare for APNU, that all of our people right across Guyana, in spite of their race, they’re benefiting from the People’s Progressive Party. That’s a fundamental difference between us.
“So, some people may believe, oh APNU is fighting for us. They’re not fighting for you. They’re fighting for themselves. The only party that you can find a home in if you’re Afro-Guyanese or Amerindian or mixed or Indo-Guyanese or Portuguese that would ensure that you and your children see sustainable progress, is the People’s Progressive Party,” Jagdeo said.
Jagdeo also derided Opposition Leader and People’s National Congress (PNC) Head Aubrey Norton, who had called on the Government to implement a rent-to-own system in the housing sector. Jagdeo pointed out that under the PPP/C, thousands of persons are being aided to becoming outright home owners.
“Norton wants us, he said if (he) wins, they’ll support your rent. We don’t want people to rent, we want people to own. That’s why we have a housing programme. If you come to the PPP, we’re different. We’re different. We’re not going to rent; we want everybody to own a house in this country. Our own home.
“When we say we want to create wealth for people, we mean you must get a house, a car, you must have a vacation, all of this. People at the top, we want the businessmen to grow and create more jobs. People say we’re pro-Private Sector? Of course, we’re pro-Private Sector. because we want them to grow and create more jobs. They practically destroyed the Private Sector. The miners, as the President told you,” Jagdeo said.
Parties
With the 2025 General and Regional Elections just a year away, parties have been gearing up to campaign, with one – A New and United Guyana (ANUG) recently going so far as to say that its objective was to bring about a minority government next year.
According to Jagdeo, however, any party looking to challenge the PPP/C next year can make any kind of promise – like the promises APNU/AFC once made, and then broke, before and after 2015. Jagdeo urged the crowd, however, to remember the importance of looking at a party’s programme. And he had a message for these parties, not to mistake the PPP/C’s silence for weakness.
“What’s the currency of a political party? What’s the only thing that you can believe in a party? It’s not how they look. It is their programme. Not just how much they can promise. Because everybody can promise. Glenn Lall can promise the moon and the star.”
“There are some who are trying to challenge us. But they better be cautious. They gotta come right. It’s a free country politically. But they may have interpreted us being quiet as a sign of weakness. It is not so. At the right time, we’ll deal with them.”
