OPPOSITION Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has predicted a big victory for the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) at the next polls when the party kick-started activities in observance of the 21st death anniversary of founding leader and former President Dr Cheddi Jagan on Sunday.

Addressing a gathering of about 2500 at Babu Jaan, Port Mourant, Berbice, the PPP general-secretary said his party will be back in power next elections.

“We will have the most numbers at the poll to win the next elections; it’s going to be a 50,000 difference between us and them,” he told the Babu Jaan gathering.

Jagdeo stressed that getting everyone on the voters list is paramount. According to him, a recent exercise conducted by the party shows that the numbers are looking good, but persons are not making it to the registration centres, despite the fact that more people are doing registration in the current cycle than in the past.

The PPP general-secretary also said that every effort will be made to protect the integrity of the GECOM database and to have an independent verification prior to elections.

He said many from civil society have been engaging the PPP and many who had left the party have returned, because they are uncomfortable with the policies of the government.

Once elected, he said, the PPP administration will act on these policies.

“We will remove the VAT on 46 food items, VAT on water and electricity and from airline travel to the interiors and we will restore the subsidies to the pensioners, so they don’t have to pay water rates… we are going to reverse many of the taxes that they have put in place that are harming the private sector… you can expect that of the PPP,” he said.

The former president also told the gathering that he believes that the decision to close some of the sugar estates was made to frustrate sugar workers and push them to migration.

He also used the opportunity to refute allegations that he and the PPP are unpatriotic, contending that the opposition supports the government on the border controversy and the prison break, among other matters.

Other speakers at the annual PPP pilgrimage included former presidents Samuel Hinds and Donald Ramotar and Region Six Member of Parliament Adrian Anamayah.