Irfaan Ali, Bharrat Jagdeo lead votes at PPP Congress

Guyana’s President Dr. Irfaan Ali secured the highest number of votes at the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) elections for the Central Committee.

The elections were held on Saturday during the party’s 32nd Congress and the results were announced on Sunday by party General Secretary, who is also Guyana’s Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo.

President Ali got 2,308 votes. Jagdeo got the second highest number of votes, that is, 2,257 votes.

The other elected members are: Zulfikar Mustapha, Vickram Bharrat, Gail Teixeira, Nigel Dharamlall, Collin Coral, Kwame McCoy, Anil Nandlall, Pauline Sukhai, Shyam Nokta, Ricky Ramraj, Jennifer Westford, Neil Kumar, Frank Anthony, Sarah Browne, Zamal Hussain, Faizal Jafarally, Bryan Allicock, Dr Vindhya Persaud, Charles Ramson, Karl Singh, Paul Cheong, Claire Singh, Donald Ramotar, Humance Oodit, Brentnol Ashley, Dharamkumar Seeraj, Bheri Ramsaran, Inshan Ayube, Vickash Ramkissoon, Sase Gunraj, Clement Rohee and Indranie Chanderpaul.

There are also five non-voting members who participated in the candidate member elections. They are Deodat Indar, Mae- Thomas, Jason abdullah, Andrew Forsythe and Rion Peters.

The Central Committee, or CC for short, is the party’s decision-making grouping. Now that the 35 members and five non-voting members have been chosen, the CEC will meet this week to determine the 15-member Executive Committee.

That Executive Committee comprises the party’s General Secretary, Executive Secretary, International Secretary and Finance Secretary.

The elections and the congress came as the party prepares for the 2025 General and Regional Elections. Jagdeo said on Sunday that the party has grown substantially and in the year ahead, much groundwork will be done to continue expanding the party.

One of the resolutions passed by the congress is that the party would do all it can to ensure that there are free and fair elections in Guyana.

The party also opted to remove Marxism- Leninism and socialism from its constitution.

“… but that does not mean that we give up on our history or the working class ideology,” Jagdeo said, clarifying that the party is embracing multiple ideologies in hopes of promoting development and unity across the country.