PPP Member of Parliament response to KN (Part 2)

Dear Editor,
The political landscape in Guyana is a vicious one, and it is very easy to peddle lies and misinformation and slander ones character for political gains.
The A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) has a strategy to retain power in 2020. It is ruthless, and relies on the unscrupulous tactics the People’s National Congress had been using effectively for years against the People’s Progressive Party (PPP). Tactics that have resonated well with their political base. The APNU/AFC re-election campaign strategy is now known. The strategy has been leaked by the Basil Williams emails and focused on three main areas:
1. They will “keep propagandising on the issue of having inherited an empty Treasury” from the PPP in 2015.
2. They will “continue to restate that the economy was surviving on drug money”, and
3. They will “continue to prod favourable media houses and social media operatives so that they further fuel the perception that the PPP is racist.”
It is now apparent from the content of (a KN editorial) that someone is using that newspaper to help the governing APNU/AFC achieve this objective.
With all the scandals; lack of performance and broken promises, the APNU/AFC is getting more desperate now. They can no longer play the “anti-corruption” card because they are now corrupt. They can no longer play the “economic development” card because the economy is struggling and there are no investors lining up to come to Guyana. Neither can they play the “increase social welfare” card because with the lack of jobs, increased taxes and 14 per cent VAT on water and electricity, more poverty and criminals are being created. All the good campaign rhetoric has been destroyed in their first two years in Government. So now, as people start drifting from them, they pull out the only option left available, the race card. And they will use whatever means necessary, with the aid of “favourable media houses”, Commission of Inquires, Eric Phillips and others to get that message out, even though they have no credibility on improving race relations. After all, this is the same Government who fired every Permanent Secretary (PS) of Indian descent after taking office, and only sent home one PS that was Afro-Guyanese. And this had nothing to do with the politics, qualifications or competence of those fired, for they were all highly trained and competent civil servants. But rather, their ethnicity.
While there is no doubt that the bulk of the PPP supporters comes from Indo-Guyanese, I have heard the Party General Secretary mentioned repeatedly at the PPP Congress and at meetings through Guyana, that the PPP is a multi-racial party and has welcomed Afro-Guyanese to be part of this culture.
As I have said before, the Granger Administration’s greatest fear is having to compete against a highly motivated PPP/C in 2020, with Bharrat Jagdeo as its Presidential Candidate. So, for this KN editorial to suggest that the PPP “is no longer a vibrant political party and has no centralised message”, tells me that the writer has not been reading the news, the letter columns, nor attending the weekly press conferences at the Office of the Leader of the Opposition. For this “editor” is either deliberately propagating misinformation, or maliciously trying to plant the seed of doubt in the minds of our supporters by insinuating that there is confusion and rivalry within the Party structure. The editorial writer wrote, “Although they will not speak publicly about it, many of its supporters have never really trusted their present leader or have truly respected his intellect, but would not speak publicly about it. They wanted an infusion of transformative and visionary leadership but this will not happen with its current leader at the helm.”
I am stunned that this piece of garbage was allowed to be published and defame the column that is associated with my friend, Editor-in-Chief, Adam Harris. This is not his style, he did not write this. But I will say this emphatically: There is no division within the rank and file of the People’s Progressive Party. Those rice farmers who were fooled by the 00 a bag for paddy, and the sugar workers conned into believing they would get a 25 per cent increase, have already returned home. The members of the People’s Progressive Party stand firmly and united behind our Leader and General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo. There is no other politician in Guyana today that is more loved, admired, respected and knowledgeable like Jagdeo, and there is no other that is more feared too, just ask the leaders of the governing APNU and AFC.
Unlike the Granger Administration that governs by trial and error, the PPP has an abundance of visionary leaders with the proven track record to run this Government from day one. Those that were once anxious to see the backs of the PPP are anxiously awaiting their return to Government. The good news is 2020 is just around the corner.

Harry Gill
PPP/C Member of
Parliament