Bharrat Jagdeo unanimously re-elected as PPP’s General Secretary

…Zulfikar Mustapha re-elected as Executive Secretary

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, who was first elected General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) in 2016, was on Tuesday unanimously re-elected as General Secretary of the party during the first meeting of the recently elected Central Committee.
This was communicated in a statement, following the meeting. In addition to Jagdeo’s re-election as General Secretary, the party also announced that Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha had also been re-elected, this time to his Executive Secretary post.

Meanwhile, President Dr Irfaan Ali was re-elected to the position of Finance Secretary of the party. The 35-member central committee also elected 18 from amongst its members, to the Executive Committee.
The new 18-member Executive Committee consists of Dr Ali, Mustapha, Attorney General Anil Nandlall, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony, Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat, Minister of Housing and Water Collin Croal, Minister of Amerindian Affairs Pauline Sukhai, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira, Minister of Human Services and Social Security Dr Vindhya Persaud, former Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Nigel Dharamlall and former President Donald Ramotar.
Rounding out the full members were current Member of Parliament, Dharamkumar Seeraj, former PPP General Secretary Clement Rohee, Neil Kumar and Shyam Nokta. Meanwhile, Minister within the Office of Prime Minister Kwame McCoy, Anand Persaud, and Ricky Ramraj were elected as candidate members.
“The other Secretaries will be elected at the next Central Committee meeting. In his address to the meeting, the General Secretary thanked the outgoing Central Committee members for their contributions. He stressed that the Congress was a resounding success, highlighted by its scale, diversity, energetic atmosphere, deep discussions, significant issues tackled, and efficient logistics,” a statement from the party on Tuesday read.
“Dr Jagdeo also expressed his deep appreciation for the work of Party members, supporters, volunteers, and others for their contribution to a highly successful congress and for their continuous support to the PPP and its programmes.”
The 32nd PPP Congress, which took place from May 3 to 5 at Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown, was themed. “Strengthen the Party, Defend Guyana, Unite Our People for Progress and Prosperity.” The congress drew participation of over 3,000 delegates and observers from across the country.
During the two-day session, the PPP Congress also adopted a number of resolutions including to formally cement the party’s presence in the hinterland regions. Historically, the party did not have a strong presence in areas such as Regions One (Barima-Waini); Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni); Eight (Potaro-Siparuni); Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) hence its constitution did not cater for establishment of party regions there.
However, this no longer the case since out of the 3000 Congress participants, more than 800 were delegates from hinterland regions. Consequently, the PPP updated of constitution to create party organisational structures in these five regions. This will see the establishment of a regional committee that will be comprised of district committees within each region.
Jagdeo had said these committees will do party work, be given more tools to carry out their mandates and hold leaders more accountable while also building on local management in these regions rather than having centralised management of their work.
Another major change coming out of last weekend’s Congress is the creation of a group, whose members will be selected by the party’s Central Committee, to review the PPP Constitution, which was adopted in 1979 and amended some 20 years.
The group will examine areas to update and present these at the county conference in a year’s time for adoption. This new party programme would outline a series of tasks for the party to undertake over the next decade.