Opposition Leader advocates for mindset change in PPP;31st Delegates & Observers Congress begins
The People’s Progressive Party’s (PPP) 31st Delegates and Observers Congress commenced today at the Cotton Field Secondary School, Essequibo Coast and the resounding call by the Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo was for party members and supporters to embrace change in an effort to regain power.
“Change does not mean we are giving up on our core principles because too many people today invoke Cheddi Jagan’s name to support inflexibility,” the Opposition Leader told the gathering.
Jagdeo clarified that the party in its quest for change is not seeking to get rid of the stalwarts, since they are needed to encourage younger persons and more particularly women, since they represent a large percentage of the PPP’s support base, hence the need for their interests to be adequately addressed.
The Opposition Leader, who was greeted with loud applause, reminded that the expertise of the older party members would always be necessary.
He stressed that “we need to carry a message across the villages and the wards of the city in our country that we are open to people, even if they did not support us in the past, we have to stop being exclusionary.” This Jagdeo said will allow the party to take back power.
The leader said from since its inception in the 1950s the PPP has always been the party of every race, religion and class of people and this is the image it will continue to have. “We are a unifying force, we do not exclude people because of how they look or because of their gender or which God they pray to, we don’t and that was a cardinal principle or our formation and we will remain true to it,” he pledged.
Meantime, speaking on the state of affairs in the country, Jagdeo told the large gathering comprising members of the Private Sector Commission and other reputable businesspersons, that the Coalition Government is bereft of ideas of managing the country and have demonstrated a proclivity to corruption.
He believes the approach of the Government involves taxing the people more, borrowing more and spending on projects that lack national importance. “You cannot run this country, make sustainable progress if you’re prone to corruption, greed and you’re mediocre and this is what this Government has demonstrated,” the Opposition Leader expressed.
