The People’s Progressive Party’s (PPP) 32nd Congress is on this weekend and at the opening ceremony, President Dr. Irfaan Ali declared that the party is at the strongest it has ever been since more people across the country are responding to the work being done.
And as he addressed approximately 3,000 delegates- the largest ever at a PPP congress- the President rebuked all claims of racial discrimination levelled against the party.
“Where is the damn discrimination? Stop this nonsense!
“Get on the agenda of ‘One Guyana’ (and) building a future that is strong and resilient for all of Guyana,” the President emphatically said.
Dr. Ali said the party has suffered from problematic narratives which framed the PPP as a political grouping that represented primarily Indo-Guyanese. He, however, said that is not the case since the PPP is Guyana’s only “national” party.
Further, the President lamented how problematic narratives were successfully deployed to subtract support from the PPP. Now recognising that those narratives must be challenges, Dr. Ali vowed that the PPP would work towards getting more people to embrace the party.
“We allowed others to define who we are, to define the narrative about who we are. From the day we took back control of that narrative, by naturally showing the population what the PPP stands for, the population rallied behind us,” he said.
And with those efforts to set the party’s track record straight, the President opined that many more people are embracing the party.
“This party that we are part of has never been on such solid footing in the history of our party.
“This is the strongest the PPP has ever been and this is something we must celebrate.
“Young Guyanese- the future of this country, are embracing us- and they are embracing us because they see in us the hope, they see in us a party that can fulfil their aspirations,” the President said above the sounds of a torrential downpour of rain at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, Liliendaal, Georgetown.
The Guyanese Head of State didn’t only reflect on the challenges the party faced while in Opposition from 2015 to 2020, including the tough task of getting to elections after the successful 2018 No-Confidence Motion and the protracted 2020 elections. He also responded directly to criticisms and what he described as unfounded claims.
What seemed to make the President particularly incensed were the claims of discrimination levelled against the party.
Dr. Ali said those claims can be easily debunked by looking at how regional budgetary allocations have increased.
And he said in Region One, allocations increased by 146%; in Region Two, 119%; in Region Three, 132%; in Region Four, 92%; in Region Five, 73%; in Region Six, 101%; in Region Seven, 155%; in Region Eight, 166%; in Region Nine, 137% and Region 10, 187%.
