By Dr. Leslie Ramsammy
JANUARY 1, 2024 marked the 74th anniversary of one of the Commonwealth’s most successful political parties, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP).
This note is not about the remarkable history of the PPP, but it is noteworthy to reflect on two of the many credentials of the PPP – it has always, continuously for 74 years, aggressively throughout its history, promoted women and youth in leadership. It would be difficult to find another political party in the Commonwealth or in the world that can match the PPP’s record of empowering youth and women.
In the same week as the PPP celebrated its 74th anniversary, during the very first week of 2024, it is no accident, it is no coincidence that two distinguished young women commanded attention, both locally and internationally.
Guyanese, no matter what their political affiliation, no matter what their religion or race, had to feel pride when Carolyn Rodrigues took the stage at the UN and hoisted Guyana’s Golden Arrowhead, our flag, as Guyana took its place for a two-year term in the Security Council on January 2, 2024.
Only 15 countries sit in the Security Council. Five countries – the US, the UK, France, China and Russia – are permanent members of the council; 10 other countries, like Guyana, are temporary members, serving two-year terms.
The other countries, besides Guyana, that serve temporarily are Algeria, Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Switzerland. Note than nine CARICOM countries have never served on the Security Council in the 70 years of its existence.
While Guyanese feel pride that our country is one of a small handful of developing countries sitting in the Council, it could not have escaped any of us that a young Guyanese indigenous woman took her place on a council dominated by old men. Guyanese women must have felt enormous pride, but so must all Guyanese, men and women.
This is the latest in a long list of accomplishments for Carolyn Rodrigues. In 2001, she was appointed as Minister of Amerindian Affairs when she was barely 25, being among the youngest ministers and MPs in our history as a country.
She was the first Amerindian woman to be a minister. Distinguishing herself and piloting the Amerindian Act in Parliament, she was promoted to be the first ever Amerindian and first ever woman to be a minister of Foreign Affairs.
For a period between 2015 and 2020, she served at the FAO headquarters in Rome, before returning to be Guyana’s UN Representative, being the first woman, other than a short stint by Janet Jagan, to hold that post. Carolyn makes us all proud as she is one of the most respected UN ambassadors in New York at this time.
On the same day, January 2, 2024, as Ambassador Rodrigues took her place on the Security Council, President Irfaan Ali announced on January 2, 2024, the appointment of Sonia Parag as the new Minister of Local Government and Regional Development. The Honourable Sonia Parag became the first ever woman to be appointed as a Minister of Local Government and Regional Development.
The Honourable Sonia Parag is a relatively newcomer to politics, having joined the PPP’s 2020 election campaign team. After the swearing in of President Ali on August 2, 2020, she was appointed as a young Minister of Public Service.
At the Ministry of Public Service, Minister Parag was entrusted by President Ali to deliver on the PPP’s manifesto promise of 20,000 scholarships for Guyanese by 2025. Two years to go still and she nearly accomplished this goal already.
Like all the PPP ministers, Minister Parag has crisscrossed Guyana, meeting people in all 10 regions of our country. Sonia Parag has rapidly become a role model for girls and women in our country.
Clearly, Carolyn Rodrigues and Sonia Parag in the very first week of 2024 underlined the continued elevation of women leadership in Guyana. The accomplishments of these two young Guyanese women, further solidified in the first week of 2024, continue to underline two of the many incredible PPP credentials.
Both of these distinguished Guyanese are youthful and women. Since the formation of the PPP, 74 years ago, when women such as Janet Jagan, Jessie Burnham, Jane Philips-Gay, Jessica Huntley, etc., played leadership roles, the PPP has been in the lead in the Caribbean and the Commonwealth, promoting women’s rights and equality, rejecting the notion that youth are the leaders of tomorrow, and promoting the notion that youth must play leadership roles now. Since its formation in 1950, the PPP has always had youth playing leadership roles.
Cheddi Jagan was in in his twenties when he became an MP and was barely 30 when he became the first leader of the PPP. He was not yet 35 when he became Premier, even if his premiership lasted for just 133 days before the British used its military might to depose and lock him up.
Ashton Chase was just a little older than 20 when he became the youngest minister ever in the Commonwealth. Carolyn Rodrigues, like Irfaan Ali and Bharat Jagdeo, was barely 25 when she became a senior minister in government. There is no disputing the PPP’s credential of empowering youth.
In the present PPP government, the President is a youthful PPP member, Dr. Irfaan Ali. There are several other youthful members of the Cabinet. Among these youthful members are women such as Priya Manickchand, Sonia Parag, Susan Rodrigues, Vindhya Persaud and Oneidge Waldron.
But Carolyn Rodrigues taking the seat on behalf of Guyana during week one of 2024 at the Security Council and Sonia Parag taking up the ministerial leadership role in Local Government and Regional Development remind us all that the PPP has an incomparable record when it comes to women equality and empowerment.
We must not forget that a woman has served as a prime minister and as a President in Guyana with a PPP government. It was also the PPP who put forward a woman, Elizabeth Harper, as a Prime Minister Candidate during the 2015 election campaign. It was the first time that a party had placed a woman as its Prime Ministerial candidate in an election.
It would be remiss on our part in this context not to note the presence in the Cabinet of a veteran woman, Gail Teixeira, the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance. She served as a young woman when she was appointed as Minister of Health in October 1992. Thirty-two years later, she is still serving as a minister. She also served previously as a Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports and as a Minister of Home Affairs.
There is no denying that the PPP stands way above most political parties in the Commonwealth when it comes to empowerment of youth and women. The first week of 2024, through the accomplishments of Carolyn Rodrigues and Sonia Parag, remind us all that the PPP has stood firm to two of its missions, first articulated 74 years ago, that women and youth are to be empowered.
