Jagdeo to Nagamootoo: PPP not divided

….says older comrades must guide younger, future leaders
…exposes Govt’s desperate attempts to regain confidence of sugar workers

By Michael Younge

There are no divisions or power struggles within the leadership of the People’s Progressive Party between its older and respected politicians and the younger comrades who are now being groomed to assume more responsibility within the

68-year-old political party structure.
This was the position of Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo who on Wednesday poured cold water on accusations which he described as baseless being made by leading personalities with the governing People’s National Congress-led A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Change coalition (PNC-APNU/AFC).
Jagdeo said having read the media reports from the heavily politicised and controlled State-owned Guyana Chronicle and its sister Department of Public Information, one cannot help but recognise the amount of editorial effort being placed on concocting stories and controversies aimed at turning the public’s attention away from the Government’s skullduggery with respect to the sugar industry and the many corruption scandals at its door steps.
“There is no power struggle between our comrades. Our Party welcomes all persons, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity or any other differentiating factor to join us. We value our members and their contributions to the Party and, by extension, to Guyana,” the Opposition Leader remarked.
He stated emphatically that he also believed “strongly that as we move forward, some of our more experienced comrades have a larger role to play in grooming younger members to take up the leadership mantel. We cannot prepare for the future otherwise”.
Jagdeo, who is also the serving PPP General Secretary, said it appears that some politicians and media houses with clear political agendas were seeking to make him their “scapegoat” while seeking to pit him against the other older folks with the PPP bureaucracy.
Turning his attention to former PPP Executive Member and now Alliance For Change elder Moses Nagamootoo’s statements to sugar workers and the press with respect to the crises being faced by the industry and GAWU’s representation, Jagdeo said that it was interesting that the Prime Minister has finally found his voice.
“…he seems intent on projecting the view that he is a champion for GAWU. In all the months, from the perfunctory consultation held between Government and the political Opposition on the future of the sugar industry to the mass-firings of thousands of sugar workers, many of whom supported him and the AFC, Nagamootoo was silent. In suddenly finding his voice, I think Nagamootoo has once again exposed the fact that he is an opportunist and indentured to President Granger and APNU,” Jagdeo posited.
The Opposition Leader also labelled the Prime Minister an “excuse-generating stooge” who having fooled rice farmers and sugar workers once before, seems to think that he can do it again by working public-relation spins.
“I want to make it clear that he is mistaken. Over the past three years, his spineless and venal character has been on full display and it evokes only revulsion. His recent rants, I believe, are also his latest attempts to rewrite history – as we saw with suggestions from the DPI report that he was subjected to a forced removal from the People’s Progressive Party (PPP),” he clarified.
He insisted that he values the hard working comrades and older comrades in the PPP as they express support whenever attempts are being made to guide and groom younger leaders to assume critical positions in the PPP as the Party moves forward under one united banner.
These sentiments were expressed by Jagdeo, a former President who served for serve continuous years, following various exchanges in the media that suggested that some form of infighting was taking place in the PPP following some rave reviews and criticisms of statements made by PPP parliamentarian Komal Chand in his capacity as GAWU’s President.