PNCR didn’t decide on greater engagement with PPP; members urged to stay away from rancor

Last Updated on Sunday, 28 August 2016, 22:21 by Denis Chabrol

The People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), the major player in the coalition-led government, has not decided on greater engagement with the opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP), but the administration says it remains open to talks.

PNCR Leader, David Granger said the opposition People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) is not interested in inter-party dialogue.  He said the just concluded 19^th Biennial Delegates Congress did not decide on such an engagement with the PPPC which holds 32 of the 65 seats in the National Assembly.

“There is no special mandate coming out of this Congress, but they expect in fulfillment of our obligation to social cohesion, which is one of my major planks of my presentation, that that will be an ongoing feature of government relations inside the National Assembly and outside,” Granger, who is also Guyana’s President, told reporters after he wrapped up the Congress.

Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo recently said his party has not received any proposal for power sharing. The PPPC is already on record as saying that it is not interested in the Guyana government’s social cohesion agenda because the administration has been deliberately discriminating against Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese and Amerindians who are not APNU+AFC supporters.

Granger said his charge to party faithful was to stay above the fray of divisive utterances, an apparent reference to repeated accusations by Jagdeo and other senior PPP functionaries that government has been discriminating against their supporters. “We should demonstrate statesmanship and stay away from the rancor and the ranting that had been taking place in other quarters and demonstrate to the Guyanese population that we are  the government and that are not going to go into the gutter and we are not going to contribute to racial division,” the President said.

Jagdeo has counter-argued that Granger and other allies who had claimed that the PPPC-led administration had been racist should, by the logic of their current concerns, be also labeled racist.