BREAKING: Jagdeo is new PPP General Secretary

Last Updated on Saturday, 7 January 2017, 12:22 by Denis Chabrol

Opposition Leader and PPP General Secretary, Bharrat Jagdeo

Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo was Saturday elected as General Secretary of his People’s Progressive Party (PPP), a move that appeared set to see him consolidate power among a new guard of party leaders.

Sources confirmed that the 35-member Central Committee voted to replace long-time PPP member, Clement Rohee at their first Central Committee meeting since the recent  PPP Congress.

At that Congress, Jagdeo had said that it was time that the party focussed more on what is good for Guyana rather than ideological “isms”.

The socialist-oriented Marxist-Leninist party has over the years, while in government from 1992 to 2015,  embraced market-oriented polices rather than a dominant role of the State in economic development.

Following the 2013  Congress, then PPP General Secretary , Donald Ramotar had handed over the post to Rohee, citing the need to focus more on presidential duties.