oey Jagan predicts PPP victory at 2020 polls
– urges party to address public perceptions
Victory may have just eluded the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) in the last General and Regional Elections in 2015, but according to Dr. Cheddi “Joey” Jagan, the son of the party’s late founder, that party is likely to return to governance.
Speaking recently during an Indian Action Committee-sponsored event in honour of his father, former President Dr. Cheddi Jagan, “Joey” pointed to the party’s track record of bouncing back stronger than ever from defeat.
“I come from the PPP. I grew up in the PPP. So I have sympathy for the PPP. I will
always have sympathy for (them). I feel the PPP is the birth of politics in this country, and will end up as the party to carry this country forward eventually. Everybody will come back to the PPP, just like it started. That’s what is going to happen,” he predicted.
“If you understand history, the PPP is like the Romans. The Romans took a beating from Hannibal in one afternoon and the Romans came back with two armies three months later. So the PPP are like the Romans. You can knock them down, you can hit them down. They will come back.”
He urged the party in the meantime to address the perceptions of the party held by the public. According to the junior Jagan, addressing these issues will be key to the party’s return to the seat of governance.
Also speaking during the event was PPP Member of Parliament Vickram Bharrat, who fielded questions as to whether the party had moved away from Jagan’s founding principles. He had refuted suggestions that the party no longer reflected
Jagan’s ideologies, while noting that as time progressed, the PPP has evolved.
“I know this has been a burning question, something finding its way around the media and the circles: that the PPP is moving away from Cheddi Jagan’s principles and teachings. But as a young person within the PPP, I want to say the party is grounded along Cheddi Jagan lines. Sometimes we tend not to differentiate between government and party.
“Sometimes we tie the party and Government actions into each other, and we say that the Government between 97 and 2015 did not act in this way and that way. But it is a different era, and we often say, maybe if Jagan was alive he would have taken these decisions that our leaders are taking today.
“One famous comment he (Jagan) made is: we must learn to walk within raindrops. It means that as time moves, as people change, it may require different ideological thinking, policies, and you must adopt it. As time changes, we have to change with it too.”
Taking on suggestions of a fraction within the party, Bharrat noted that, like any “family”, there will be disagreements and dissenters among the party leaders. But he noted that when the party shows its face, it is a united one.
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, who is also the PPP General Secretary, has
Jagan
