Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton has made his final bid to rally support for the PNC-led A Partnership for National Unity APNU), calling on Guyanese to go out and vote for the party at Monday’s Local Government Elections (LGE).
In a statement on Saturday, Norton said there is no doubt several local issues continue to concern citizens within their towns and communities and affect their quality of life.
“We all have a right to live in clean, appealing, well-maintained, and healthy surroundings. How our local councils perform therefore must remain important.”
“These elections have national implications above and beyond local problems… Let us use our votes to send a message to the PPP that life is hard in Guyana. Use our votes to protest the high cost of living, to protest the daily struggles to put food on the table… The fewer the votes the PPP gets, the stronger the message. Vote therefore for APNU or any other party or candidate on the list. APNU puts people first. Let us begin to rescue our nation together,” the Opposition Leader stated in his statement.
Norton’s no-show
However, even as he lobbied support for the PNC-led APNU at Monday’s local government polls, Norton disappointed scores of party supporters in New Amsterdam, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).
The APNU-organised public meeting was advertised with Norton being the main speaker and was slated to start at 18:00 hours. But the Opposition Leader never showed up.
Despite his no-show, several constituency candidates who are contesting for a spot on the New Amsterdam Municipality addressed the gathering.
They all asked residents not to allow the ruling Peoples Progressive Party/Civic to take control of the traditionally PNC-controlled township.
Kirk Fraser, who is a sitting Councilor on the Town Council and the Regional Chairman of the PNC, urged residents to ensure that the council does not take on a different look after Monday.
“We must not give them political power in this town. We are here to serve you and to protect you, that is our number one objective heading into the new Council… We have a civic duty and that duty is to protect and defend… this great town. We must demonstrate this through our vote.”
However, many residents have pointed to the decades in which the Town Council had been under the administration of a PNC-led administration and garbage disposal has been a sore issue together with poor drainage.
A former APNU Councilor on the Town Council Esan Vanderstoop said he decided to throw his support behind the PPP at this LGE because the current leadership of the Council lacks vision and has not been able to fix many of the core issues for decades which include the deplorable state of many of the Town’s roads.
Nevertheless, Fraser said at Saturday’s meeting that residents need to play an active role in the development of the town pointing to self-help activity that took place during the Burnham regime.
According to Fraser, the only way the town can be developed is if residents spend their money in the town as he called and residence to support the Municipal Market.
“In the new Council, we will be trying to attract investors of your type to fulfill many of the needs that you so desire in this Town of New Amsterdam,” he noted.
Meanwhile, Deputy Mayor Wainwright McIntosh said it was under the APNU/AFC Administration that local democracy was restored. He said that citizens should be the ones who decide which streets should take priority in any street repair programme and should also be the ones to decide where parks should be built.
Constituency candidate Kim Stevens went onto recognise that there needs to be a transformation and restoration to see New Amsterdam achieve its full potential. She pointed out that many of the town’s streets are in urgent need of repairs. The management of solid waste, she said, is a sore issue that must be addressed by the new Council.
“Bins are not regularly emptied,” Steven said.
According to Stevens, if elected as a Councilor, she will focus on ensuring that there is a night care facility to assist female single parents who have to leave their children so that they can leave their children in a safe environment when they have to work night shifts.
She implored residents to ensure that there is a Town Council that represents a party that is different from the government, but one which the central government should support.
Mayor Winifred Haywood also used the opportunity to deliver her farewell speech to the New Amsterdam township. Haywood will not be running for a position on the new Council.
