— Ramson swipes at Jagdeo
— maintains PPP needs ‘young, fresh and credible leadership’

CHARLES Ramson Jr. has come out swinging against People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary, Bharrat Jagdeo, declaring that he will not engage in a “tit-for-tat” with the former president on the leadership of the party.

Ramson, who is a member of the PPP and former parliamentarian, said that any back and forth with Jagdeo will be “destroying” Guyana.
“It must change but the political parties have to change the way they do things,” said Ramson in a press statement on Saturday.

Two days ago, Ramson publicly announced that he will be contesting for the post of presidential candidate of the party, but Jagdeo, in response to this move, said it was a departure from the approach the party has always used.
“We have a way of approaching these matters… It’s a departure from that approach but maybe the person here might think this best suit his purpose but the party will meet and discuss this too.”

“One thing we have frowned upon though is lack of modesty, lack of modesty among people who are presidential hopefuls,” Jagdeo told a news conference on Thursday.
Although Ramson said he is not prepared to disrespect the PPP, he noted that he responded to Jagdeo because he is “scared of no man”.

“I respect my political party and all of our members, so I will never disrespect any member in public like that since good leadership demands that you protect the people you lead…I am scared of no man, I only fear God,” said the young politician.

Ramson believes that both Jagdeo and he are on the same team, seeking to achieve the same objective and there should be no issue with his announcement.
According to a report from Demerara Waves, from all accounts, the PPP would be sticking with the same formula to arrive at a presidential candidate but, according to Jagdeo the approach could change if the Central Committee itself decides to do otherwise.

“I was never aware of any such custom and over my 10 years with the party I saw different. I saw persons make public announcements before going through a nomination process for the 2015 election and only recently one potential contestant made comments in the newspapers,” said Ramson, adding that persons have done far worse things, such as being involved in corruption.

The young politician said, when those things happened, no press conference was held or disrespectful and childish comparisons were made.

“But I do want to say this about my generation … if you invite our generation into the process and court our support then you are going to have to be prepared to accept that we are going to be bringing fresh ideas, beliefs and way of doing things too,” he said.
The PPP and Guyana need “young, fresh and credible leadership,” he told sections of the media on Wednesday afternoon.