Only PPP Central Exec picked 2020 polls PM candidate- Jagdeo

Last Updated on Sunday, 9 February 2025, 21:00 by Writer

General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Bharrat Jagdeo says that it was his party’s Executive Committee that decided who should have been its prime ministerial candidate for the 2020 general and regional elections, after differing versions surfaced.

“The presidential candidate does not determine who is the prime ministerial candidate will be. It’s the Executive of the PPP and I led that process to select the prime ministerial candidate,” he told Demerara Waves Online News.

Mr Jagdeo rhetorically asked whether “you think we’re a stupid party” to select city businessman, Terrence Campbell, who had in 2019 stated that he had dedicated his entire life to prevent the PPP from winning a parliamentary majority in the 65-seat National Assembly.

“We’ll be extraordinarily stupid to do that. His name never even surfaced in the process that I launched so there couldn’t have been an offer to him and that could have only come from me after the discussion with the executive, not from the presidential candidate,” he said.

After President Irfaan Ali last week vehemently denied ever offering Dr Campbell to be his prime ministerial candidate for the 2020 polls, the businessman showed Demerara Waves Online News what he said was the Guyanese leader’s March 16, 2020, reference to a previous conversation that he had offered him the opportunity to be his running mate.

When contacted for a reaction last week, the President said “I have no further comment on the issue.”

After the news stories were published last Friday, Dr Campbell also said the matter was closed because he and Dr Ali are friends. “I hold President Irfaan Ali as a friend, and brother, even though our political positions are diametrically opposed. I do not plan to make any further comment on this matter.”

Retired Brigadier Mark Phillips—who had often frequented PPP-aligned events and gatherings as well as meetings at the then Office of the Leader of the Opposition on Church Street, Georgetown, after leaving the GDF—was Ali’s prime ministerial running mate.

Dr Campbell has been facing stinging attacks ever since he called for specific information on how Guyana’s oil money would be spent before the Natural Resources Fund transfers funds to the Consolidated Fund. The Guyana government has maintained that the law provides for the mixture of revenues and other resources in the Consolidated Fund for use on government’s programmes and projects after approval by the National Assembly and subsequent audit by the Auditor General’s Office and scrutiny by the Public Accounts Committee.