The governing People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) is challenging claims by the Opposition APNU that it garnered more votes in the capital, Georgetown, at Monday’s Local Government Elections when compared to the last local polls held in 2018.
With a higher voter turnout in Georgetown this year, moving from 24 to 29 per cent, General Secretary of the PPP/C, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, on Thursday argued that it was the PPP/C that picked up well over 5, 000 additional votes while the votes for APNU dropped by the hundreds.
He told reporters that the party was well aware throughout the campaign of how difficult it would be to win in the city – an opposition stronghold – but he said the results were nothing short of impressive support for the PPP/C.
“I’ve seen a lot of people talk about how APNU staved off the PPP in Georgetown and even increased their votes.
“…but their votes in the actually declined, it did not increase like everyone is portraying now,” Jagdeo said.
To make his case, he pointed out firstly that the APNU contested the 2018 elections along with its coalition partner AFC at the time.
Together, they secured 21, 186 votes in Georgetown in 2018.
And although 18, 127 of those votes were independent votes for APNU, Jagdeo maintained that they contested as a single coalition in government at the time.
Now in 2023, the APNU contested the elections alone and got 20, 839 votes in Georgetown.
And while on the surface the numbers reflect an increase of 2, 712 votes, Jagdeo said when the 3, 059 votes the AFC got in 2018 is added, it amounts to an actual decline of 374 votes or 1.6 per cent.
“…Because these were parties together in government… so, they have lost votes in the city, there was no increase,” Jagdeo said.
On the other hand, he boasted that the PPP/C grew its votes in the city from 7, 050 in 2018 to 12,553 in 2023.
With a higher turnout in the city, the PPP/C got 5, 503 more votes.
“So, we increased our votes. They had a decline and we increased our votes in Georgetown by 78 per cent.”
With the PPP/C seats on the City Council set to move from seven to 11, Jagdeo believes the PPP/C could have easily flipped Georgetown.
“If you look at some of these constituencies, you will see how close the race was. We lost by four votes in one, 166 in another and 200 odd votes in another.
“With maybe another few hundred more votes, we could have easily flipped the city,” Jagdeo said.
He said the PPP recorded gains across all the 15 constituencies in the city.
“That is the true picture that they would like to hide from you, that is the picture of Georgetown, we moved from 7 to 11 seats and we could have won many more constituencies.
“APNU lost votes in the city and we increased our votes by 78 per cent. That is a major feat for our candidates.
“I don’t understand this talk about failure and we didn’t win the city, this is your stronghold, you got a trashing in your stronghold. This is a trashing, a defeat by any standard, no amount of spin cannot change this,” Jagdeo said.
Jagdeo went through similar comparisons in Bartica, Linden and New Amsterdam – all strongholds of the APNU.
He said claims that the low turnout at the polls was a rejection of PPP were also false, noting that this is a historic feature of the local government elections.
