Georgetown: Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo disclosed that the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) got 28,000 votes more than the governing A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition at the recent Local Government Elections (LGE).
GECOM’s data indicates that the PPP/C won by 25,000 votes but Jagdeo insisted that the figures gathered by the PPP/C states that the Party won by 28,000.
Jagdeo, at a recent news conference at the PPP/C’s Freedom House headquarters in Georgetown, said the PPP/C’s victory at the LGE was massive and significant in the sense that, out of a total of 1,166 seats up for grabs – the PPP/C won 754 (64.7%) while the APNU/AFC won 374 seats (32.2%). This means the Opposition party received twice as many seats than the APNU/AFC.
This “massive win” he said knocked the previously vocal governing coalition into ‘silence’ mode.
Jagdeo said what is quite interesting to note is the fact that the PPP/C won 28,000 more votes than APNU/AFC when the voter turnout was just below 50 per cent whereas in the 2015 National Elections, the marginal difference was a mere 5,000 votes.
He also told reporters that several of the official figures released by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) varies from that of the PPP/C. In this regard, he is urging the Commission to move swiftly to correct the inaccuracies.
He explained that GECOM probably did not take into account the areas where there was a no contest like Crabwood Creek and Black Bush Polder.
“If you take 50% of the votes that we got in 2015 and you put it in the PPP column, we would be talking about something like 33000 votes more than APNU/AFC but as it stands now, leaving out those areas… we won 28 thousands more votes than APNU in (local government) elections,” the former President declared.
He pointed out that in the national elections, the difference was less than 5000 votes and what makes this local government poll particularly interesting is a difference of 28,000 votes when the turnout was under 50%.
“This magnifies basically the showing of the PPP because with only a 47% turnout, we won 28,000 more than APNU/AFC; 25,000 by GECOM’s number,” Dr Jagdeo stated.
Notably, the PPP/C has always contended that the 2015 National Elections were not free and fair; and an Elections Petition was consequently filed by PPP/C Member Ganga Persaud and is currently in the Courts.
Meanwhile, Dr Jagdeo reiterated that the PPP/C won massively and now that the elections are over, the focus of the Party would be on the development of the communities that it won.
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