Don’t buy into stereotypes about PPP – Jagdeo

…says rumours about ExxonMobil keeping APNU/AFC in power false

Talk about ExxonMobil receiving the deal it did when the 1999 agreement was renegotiated by the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition Government, in exchange for keeping the coalition Government in power for the next 20 years were discounted by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo. He addressed the matter at his news conference on Thursday at his Church Street office.
He noted that such comments have been reported by activists who have indicated that this is the line that the coalition Government is peddling to excuse it actions with respect to the increasingly controversial ExxonMobil deal. However, he urged Guyanese not to “buy into rumours” being peddled.
A confident Jagdeo declared that come 2020, the difference of votes at the

General and Regional Elections will be a whopping 50,000, given the work currently being done on the ground, including in APNU strongholds. Hard work, in addition to the fact that the APNU/AFC coalition Government has failed miserably on delivering its many manifesto promises, will deliver a People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) victory, according to him. “I don’t know what new they will come up on. All of their manifesto promises have been broken… the only card they are left with is the race card,” he said.

Stereotypes
The Opposition Leader disclosed too that already several former supporters of the APNU/AFC coalition have joined the People’s Progressive Party (PPP). “A group of individuals who worked very hard for APNU joined us recently,” he disclosed. Jagdeo added that work continues to break the stereotypes peddled about the PPP.
At a prior news conference, he referred to the fact that the one of the former APNU/AFC supporters was in a recent confrontation with a PNC leader, Aubrey Norton, and was told: ‘You will never make it to the top floor of Freedom House’.

Jagdeo pointed out that many of his news conferences are held on the very top floor and Norton’s comments are evidence of the warped view being peddled about the PPP. “Mister Norton and others who believe that there are secret rooms in Freedom House, I can invite them for a tour… this is the perception that is being peddled actively, that Freedom House is not receptive of persons from different races. Anyone is free to join the Party… we urge them not to fall prey to these stereotypes,” he said.
According to Jagdeo, Norton’s comments reflect the most recent stereotype peddled about the PPP – and the latest that has been rubbished. “This is similar to the list that was circulated 10 years that said the PPP Government killed 400 Afro-Guyanese… we have been re-circulating the list and it is clear who are on the

list… it was not a list of people killed by the PPP but that stereotype thrived again and was actively peddled in many communities to create an impression of the PPP,” he said.
The PPP General Secretary added, “… a third issue is that Afro-Guyanese fared worse under the PPP than under the [People’s National Congress] PNC… I have said let us do fact-based analysis… let us see the difference between 1964 and 1992 and 1992 to 2015 and now… look at access to education, home ownership, wealth accumulation… Afro Guyanese, all Guyanese fared better under the PPP.”

Open to all Guyanese
Jagdeo made clear that the PPP’s work continues and all Guyanese are welcomed as supporters of the PPP. “We are working to change that and we urge people to look at the facts… we are leading the struggle to retake Government,” Jagdeo said.
He has stressed too that the coalition has proved that it is “incapable” of running a country. According to him, the current Administration is not only bereft of ideas on how to manage and grow the local economy, but has demonstrated it proclivity for greed, mediocrity and arrogance, in addition to being “hopelessly” incompetent. “This Government has made deception an art form,” he said.
Jagdeo added that by 2020 – or sooner – the PPP hopes to implement the plan that it has for the country, plans aimed at enhancing progress and development that benefits all of Guyana. “We will be bigger, better and stronger (by 2020),” Jagdeo declared.

He assured that the PPP will not neglect its support base, but will continue to reach out to all its supporters and stated that the PPP is a Party for all of Guyana and will take its message across the country.
Moving forward, Jagdeo made clear that the Party must be guided by what is good for all Guyanese and Guyana and by the founding principles of the PPP.
The PPP, he said, also has to decentralize and build up local leaders so that the PPP is in “tip top” shape to respond to the challenges of the day.
Jagdeo underscored the fact that the PPP has always been inclusive and will continue to engage anyone, regardless of ethnicity, religion or any other factor. According to him, the PPP is an unifying force. “We will work hard for the next few years to take back this country… those who voted for us and those who didn’t want to know what the Party stands for,” he said.
Specifically, he spoke to the need to strengthen the PPP family; the need for the PPP to remain open to new members and be accommodating to supporters who had left, but are returning; and the need to defend existing freedoms by understanding what is happening.
Jagdeo is also the PPP’s General Secretary. “At the moment my role is to prepare the Party to win the next elections,” he said.