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Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo
A message from the PPP
January 1, 2016

IN the New Year, 2016, we will be celebrating our country’s 50th Independence Anniversary.
The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) will be celebrating this historic event in accordance with its own political understanding and interpretation of the evidence it has researched and assessed in respect to our country’s political history and the struggles waged by the PPP for our country’s independence.
Questions have been raised in respect of who planted the seed of Nationhood. As far as the PPP is concerned, we harbour no doubts. The first seed was planted in early 1945 by Cheddi Jagan, who, in an article wrote: “It therefore behooves the working class people to get control of government through their constitutional ballots in our forthcoming elections, with a view towards complete independence.”
A second seed was planted following the establishment of the People’s Progressive Party on January 1, 1950. The Party, in its first elections manifesto, declared: “The PPP, recognizing that the final abolition of exploitation and oppression, of economic crisis and unemployment and wars, will only be achieved by the socialist reorganization of society, pledges itself to the task of winning a free and independent Guiana – a society in which security, unity, peace and freedom shall be the heritage of all.”
As we turn towards celebrating the 50th Anniversary (of Independence) we must look at the conditions existing now in our country for moving to achieve these goals, and ask ourselves how near or far we are from achieving them.
Fellow Guyanese, as we approach 2016, the PPP takes enormous pride in its accomplishments in 2014 and in the first quarter of 2015. The Party looks to the future with a deep sense of confidence and optimism.
Following the May 11, 2015 Regional and General Elections, the PPP/C administration left in its wake a buoyant economy bristling with energy and confidence, with both local and overseas investors queuing up to take advantage of more and more opportunities that were opening up for them.
For the PPP, the productive sector was held in high esteem, every encouragement and available incentive was given to both the public and private sectors to boost production and productivity; the sole objective being, at all times, to grow the economy; create wealth; and facilitate prosperity for all.
The fulfilment of long-awaited dreams, such as the development and delivery of hydro-electricity; the extraction of petroleum resources from our territorial waters; the construction of the specialty hospital, a modern and expanded international airport at Timehri, and the juridical settlement of the controversy with Venezuela were on the cusp of delivery in the same way as the Marriott Hotel and the Berbice River Bridge were, only to be torpedoed by the APNU+AFC coalition administration on the flimsy and groundless lamentations about corruption.
Fellow Guyanese,
The PPP will continue to forge ahead with its 26-point demand, which was made public earlier this year.
We call on all Guyanese to support these demands as well as our call for electoral reforms. We wish each and every Guyanese best wishes in the New Year.