‘I stand by what I said, Opposition’s racist agenda failed miserably at Washington DC conference’ – GS Jagdeo

General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo underscored that the recently ended ‘Washington Conference’ which featured the main opposition party, the APNU+AFC failed miserably to achieve any of its objectives, and was ‘meaningless’ in the general scheme of politics locally.

The general secretary was at the time restating his party’s position following what he described as dramatic and desperate attempts to prove his position wrong by the opposition.

He stated, while speaking at his weekly press conference at Freedom House, Georgetown, on Thursday, that these attempts were not fooling anyone as they all know the truth.

“I shared what was the collective sentiment of Guyana that the so-called Washington Conference was a failure…Failure to achieve any of its objectives. They went up there with a racist agenda hoping that the US government and congressmen would take their sides in pursuing the racist agenda. They did not succeed,” Dr Jagdeo underlined.

The general secretary indicated that the Opposition was told that there were two sides to the coin and that they were not in a position to share irrefutable evidence of their discrimination and racism claims when asked.

Also, Dr Jagdeo emphasised that the Opposition was unable to get any condemnation of the Government of Guyana from the policymakers in the United States.

During the meeting, Dr Jagdeo made it clear that the opposition’s sole resolution was to support preventing him from visiting the United States.

“The one resolution that they passed unanimously was to ban Jagdeo from going to the US. That is their so-called conference…rather than anything to do with their so-called cause…,” he added.

He went on to say that Rickford Burke’s interests were the main focus of the conference and that no discussion of Guyana’s political climate was intended.

Dr Jagdeo highlighted the Opposition’s attempt to mislead the conference on the PPP’s purported election-stealing activities in 2020.

He clarified that the PNC’s efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 elections in Guyana were well known to the US government.

Meanwhile, Dr Jagdeo, who is also the Vice President of Guyana, referred to the context of the statement that he had issued which he said was misconstrued.

The general secretary explained the statement he made at the last press conference which was ‘If you lie about that what else would you lie about?’

“This is what I said. Imagine APNU going to Washington to say that the PPP tried to steal or steal the 2020 elections. How divorced are they from reality? How shameless can you be? How can you do that with a clear conscience when everything points to the contrary including the State Department that was part of the change? The United States State Department and its staff, there, they do not change with administration, except for the political leadership.

They have stability in government. They know of the attempts to steal the elections because they [the US government] helped to fight it off. Therefore, people have to think, ‘If you lie about that? What else you wouldn’t lie about?”, Jagdeo said exposing the opposition narrative.

The general secretary underlined that he does not think that any congressman addressed the conference.

“That is what I was talking about…They went to Washington to lie about elections. They have to make all sorts of excuses…This is another point to prove how they can distort what you say. My comment about the lie had to do with the democracy issue…” he said.

Dr Jagdeo reiterated that the opposition-organised conference was an attempt to extort money from people and was a money-making scam.