Poor efforts on the part of Candidates to mobilise their supporters to go out and vote in yesterday’s Local Government Elections (LGE) may have been the reason for the very low turnout of voters, says Head of the Private Sector Commission’s (PSC) Observer Mission, Captain Gerald Gouveia.
“I think the candidates did a very poor job. I think in my view GECOM (Guyana Elections Commission) did a lot of work to enhance public knowledge and public education. I don’t think the public paid a lot of attention, and I don’t think that political parties and candidates really did the amount of work to mobilise their supporters to go to the polls so I put a lot of it in the laps of the candidates and political parties,” Gouveia said.
“The turnout was very, very low. That is what we are getting across the country,” Gouveia said.
However, he acknowledged that the voting process was a smooth one throughout the day with the exception of a few minor hiccups which were resolved in a timely manner.
“It was incident-free in a general sense; we have had no major reported anomalies or issues. We have had two incidents reported by the PPP (People’s Progressive Party) and when we investigated it, we were told that it was resolved in a satisfactory way to the PPP,” he stated.
Gouveia was in high praise for the GECOM Staff who he said displayed a high level of professionalism throughout the process, noting that some 507,633 persons were registered to vote in the 71 Local Authority Areas, but based on reports from across the country, voter turnout was below 50 per cent.
Gerald, the world over most people are moved mainly at General Elections. APNU supporters ,are not easily motivated to go out and vote. This simply does not reflect on the Politicians only,it is a sad reality of the indifference of people …..granting of a holiday would not have seen any marked improvement.
I have to agree with you . But people of themselves should know a Local Government Election is very important. You elect people ,that have leading abilities and a working potential. You don’t vote a person in because they have a certain color, or because they belong to a certain Party. We need to move forward not backward. With that said, Green is out is a great thing.