Short answers, pulled from the story.
The People's Progressive Party was founded on the 1st of January 1950 as a merger of the British Guiana Labour Party, led by Forbes Burnham, and the Political Affairs Committee, led by Cheddi Jagan. It was the first mass political party in Guyana's history. The party held its first congress on the 1st of April 1951.
As of 2025, the PPP/C holds 36 of the 65 seats in Guyana's National Assembly. The party won 55.31% of the vote in the 2025 elections, receiving 242,498 ballots.
Janet Jagan was the widow of PPP founder Cheddi Jagan and the PPP/C's presidential candidate in the 1997 elections. She won that election and became the first American-born female head of state in history. She resigned from the presidency in 1999 due to ill health.
In 2004, farmer George Bacchus alleged that PPP/C Minister for Home Affairs Ronald Gajraj was linked to "phantom death squads" responsible for killing up to 40 people, including Bacchus's own brother. Bacchus was assassinated on the 24th of June 2004. A government commission later formally exonerated Gajraj, though it found he had an "unhealthy relationship" with organized crime.
The Kennedy administration believed PPP leader Cheddi Jagan was likely a Communist. The CIA was deployed to support a campaign by conservatives and Burnham loyalists to remove the PPP from power, and the United States pressured a reluctant United Kingdom to cooperate. This intervention contributed to the PPP's removal from office following the 1964 elections.
At its 32nd Congress on the 5th of May 2024, the PPP/C removed "Marxism-Leninism" and "socialism" from its party constitution. The party retained democratic centralism as an organizing principle.