The Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) has swept a significant majority of the Local Authority Areas (LAAs) at this year’s Local Government Elections (LGE), with the party making momentous inroads in townships such as Georgetown, Mahdia, Bartica, and New Amsterdam – which are considered APNU strongholds.
PPP General Secretary Dr Bharrat Jagdeo told a press conference on Monday night that it is an “extremely big night” for the party based on the preliminary results which show the party winning over 65 of the 80 LAAs under contest.
In fact, he said the party may ‘pick up’ some of the townships that were previously dominated by an APNU/AFC leadership.
“We’re tabulating now based on the basis of WhatsApp images of SOPs that have come in but I want to wait until all the SOPs come here where we can actually sit with them and go through these…and then you will see the actual results that we know [will] show major inroads in the city, major inroads in New Amsterdam, Bartica and Mahdia. We may be tied in these two areas from our preliminary results but we have the plurality of the votes,” Jagdeo explained.
“We won more votes than APNU in those areas on the basis of the preliminary results that came into us. These are two towns that are controlled by APNU, we believe, although they might be tied now, because of us winning the plurality of the votes, we will win these areas,” he added.
In Georgetown, Dr Jagdeo said the party is projected to win more constituencies as compared with 2018 and that the vote differential between the PPP and APNU in 2018 would be “significantly small”.
“So, it means we will do extremely well in Georgetown,” the PPP GS said.
“In New Amsterdam too, it’s the same thing. There are many, many areas in New Amsterdam, we went neck-to-neck with APNU in what was traditionally, where we would get ten votes in the past in a particular polling place, we’re almost getting equal numbers with APNU in many of those areas. So, the results have been great even in New Amsterdam,” he further explained.
Major inroads, he explained, were also made in Kwakwani, Region Ten (Upper Demerara-Berbice); based on information reaching this publication, the PPP has doubled its seats in that community. “We lost by a tiny margin…,” Jagdeo shared.
Moreover, based on the preliminary results, the party also retained majority leadership the Region One (Barima-Waini) township of Mabaruma as well as in Port Kaituma.
Meanwhile, the PPP GS said the preliminary results clearly show that the PPP waged a good campaign.
“Regardless of the results today, the PPP has already demonstrated that it is the only multi-ethnic party that is capable of bringing a crowd together…I made it clear too that it is very difficult to win in the stronghold of another party but we made a valiant attempt. We waged a good campaign,” he expressed.
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is the official entity to declare the results of LGE 2023.
