Jagdeo claims ‘massive’ wins for PPP/C at local gov’t polls

-says focus now on national campaign

Bharrat Jagdeo
Bharrat Jagdeo

The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) has secured “massive” wins at the 2018 local government elections, according to PPP General Secretary and Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo, who says it won the majority of seats on five of the ten municipalities and picked up key support in Georgetown.

“In the 2016 (elections), we did not win a single constituency of the 15 [in Georgetown]. Now the PPP has won three of the constituencies and we have secured four PR [proportional representation] seats. Seven up from two in 2016. That is a massive, massive, massive gain in the city,” Jagdeo told a news conference yesterday at Freedom House, in Georgetown.

Jagdeo said that in 2016, the difference in PR votes between the PPP/C and APNU+AFC was about 24,000 votes and that this year, the difference would be upward of 45,000, which surpasses its target. He claimed that the difference between APNU and the PPP/C is over 54,000 votes and the difference between the PPP/C and the AFC is over 113,000 votes. “If that is not an indication of the massive defeat this government and its partners have suffered at Monday’s elections, then nothing is,” he added. 

The focus of PPP/C councilors in Georgetown, Jagdeo said, would be on accountability by insisting on annual audited statements, public tendering for works, making the services of the city council more user-friendly, accelerating the process for issuing permits for construction to create jobs, reviewing all expenditure, and reviewing the security of the mayor and former mayors. “They will vote against any attempt to resurrect any parking meter contract,” he said.

“We are going in with an agenda,” he added. “I will talk to our councilors to push these things.” 

‘We crushed them’

Jagdeo said the PPP/C also won the Mabaruma municipality, securing eight of the 12 seats.  “We crushed them in Mabaruma in spite of all the goodies and the several visits by ministers,” he said. The PPP/C and APNU+AFC had tied for seats in 2016.

In Lethem, the PPP/C won three of the five constituency seats and three PR seats, a combined total of six seats. In 2016 the PPP/C had won one constituency seat. APNU now has four seats.

The PPP/C won all the seats in Anna Regina, won all the constituency seats in Corriverton, and in Rose Hall won six of the seven constituency seats compared to five in 2016.

In New Amsterdam, the party increased its constituency seats by one, and in Linden where it had no seat, it gained one.

In Mahdia, where the party could not find candidates and enough backers to contest the constituencies, Jagdeo said, the party got 25 per cent of the PR votes. “Mahdia is one of our targets,” he said.

Although it did not win in Bartica, Jagdeo noted that in 2016 it had won 699 votes and APNU+AFC won 1,954 votes. This year, he said the PPP/C got a 62 per cent increase over 2016, with 1,144 votes, while APNU received 1,443 votes and the AFC 470 votes.  

The PPP/C retained the Matarkai (Matthew’s Ridge/Arakaka/Port Kaituma) Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC), he said, and won the Buxton Foulis NDC for the first time. 

In spite of merging some areas to reduce the number of seats in the NDCs, which Jagdeo had described as gerrymandering by central government, the PPP/C and APNU tied with four seats each in Aberdeen/Zorg-en-Vlygt and the Evergreen/Paradise NDCs. He added that the PPP/C would still have control of NDCs because it gained the majority through the PR votes.

The PPP/C also prevailed in the newly created areas of Nile/Cozier in the Lower Pomeroon River and also in the Wyburg/Caracas NDC in Berbice.

In areas that might have been tied in the past, he said, the PPP/C may lose because of gerrymandering. “We started with the loss of about 32 seats,” he said.

Though the PPP/C did not win in Kwakwani, he said, the party won a constituency seat. In 2016, the party secured 56 votes, while this time it got over 135 votes.

In Crabwood Creek, the PPP/C won all seven of the constituencies.

In Whim/Bloomfield, the PPP/C won the seven constituencies convincingly, he said, with the PPP gaining 1,150 votes and the AFC 136 votes.

The AFC should have had a minimum of 160 votes, he said, because it would have had a minimum of 160 backers but it only secured 136 which, he said, reveals that the party engaged in fraud. “All is revealed now,” he said.

Polling during the day was smooth across the country, he said, with minor hiccups, such as Returning Officers at first refusing to put the party seals on the closed ballot boxes, which were eventually resolved. Other issues, he said, would be raised at the level of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).

GECOM officers were “very professional,” he added.

Noting that the local authority areas that the party would have won will not be increasing rates and taxes for the next three years in keeping with the PPP/C campaign promises, Jagdeo said, to ensure that they are not starved of funding, the party will lobby for increased subventions. 

“Definitely, when the PPP gets into office at the national level, because we are moving straight now to the national campaign, we will have to ensure that more resources are ploughed into these local government bodies,”  he said.

Jagdeo thanked supporters who voted for the 3,000 candidates the party fielded and the many people in APNU strongholds who assured the PPP campaigners that they were going to withhold their votes, and which he claimed they did.