The PPP/C has won the municipality of Lethem in District 9 as it ran unopposed and APNU Leader Aubrey Norton reasoned that this was because the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) did not give a reprieve to its complaints that its district representative had his vehicle vandalized and all the Party’s documents were stolen.
“Our person had their vehicle broken into and all of our documents stolen,” Norton told Stabroek News yesterday. He continued, “We told GECOM and asked for an extension. At the time we had asked for extra time and they had said no.” Running unopposed means that the PPP/C now hold all five seats on the Town Council, two more than it did at the 2018 LGE.
On Nomination Day this year, (Monday April 17th) Norton had told the media that the party’s representative could not deliver the APNU’s list of candidates because of the theft of the documents from the vehicle. He had said that he would lobby GECOM in an attempt to get an extension, since it was no direct fault of the party that the documents could not be delivered. He subsequently announced that APNU would not be contesting in Lethem as they had not gotten positive feedback from GECOM.
In 2018, of the 1,334 valid votes that came in for the Lethem municipality the APNU received 528 votes, PPP/C 676 and the AFC 130. Some 22 ballot papers were rejected. APNU received two seats and the PPP/C 3 on the five member Council. This year, elected councilors to the municipality are Fitzgerald Brentol Singh for Constituency 1 (this constituency was won by APNU in 2018 with representative Youlanda Richmond as the Councilor).
Indira Marissa Singh will be the Councillor for Constituency 2 and replaces PPP/C Councilor Evadine King; John Macedo returns to Constituency 3 which he had won in 2018. Constituency 4’s APNU representative Olive D’Aguiar-Atkinson has been replaced by Andreza Do Nascimento and Jason Wilson will return as Councilor for Constituency 5 which he too had won in 2018.
