Juretha’s hometown rejection 

Bartica has long been considered a PNC/R stronghold, a place where, for decades, the party and its coalition – APNU – have comfortably dominated.

Yet on Saturday night at Futu Square, where the APNU launched its election campaign for Region Seven, the crowd — or lack of it — told a different story.

The rally carried particular significance: Bartica is the hometown of Juretha Fernandes, the APNU’s prime ministerial candidate. Fernandes, a former AFC member who crossed the floor to APNU along with many of her close allies, had been on the ground in the days leading up to the launch, walking through the township and rallying support.

Yet, despite this show of boots on the ground, the crowds did not materialise.

Even moments before the rally’s scheduled 18:00 hrs start, party workers and supporters mounted a last-minute drive around Bartica, blaring music, waving flags and urging residents to come out.

It was to little avail.

When the event finally got underway, almost two hours late, the sparse gathering was impossible to ignore. APNU speakers, including Sherod Duncan, sought to downplay the poor turnout.

He told those present that many residents were simply afraid of being victimised if they openly supported the opposition.

He also sought to compare the turnout to a PPP/C meeting held the night before.

Duncan added humour to the moment and claimed that the PPP/C’s event had “two dogs” in attendance but by the News Room’s own count, the dogs at Futu Square could have easily outnumbered people. A scuffle even broke out among the dogs, further dampening the atmosphere at what is usually one of Bartica’s liveliest Saturday night spots.

Photos taken an hour and a half after the scheduled start and posted online quickly drew widespread ridicule for APNU. Supporters, rather than addressing the reality, turned their frustration on the News Room instead of confronting the poor showing.

Adding to the intrigue, Fernandes herself remained largely absent for most of the rally. She only emerged from a vehicle when it was time to address the gathering as the final speaker of the night. After a lengthy speech and a short round of greetings with those who stayed until the end, she departed.

In a further twist, when the News Room requested an interview, Fernandes’ handler, Onix Duncan, declined on her behalf. He then went on to falsely accuse the News Room of biased reporting — while claiming he had hand-counted 200 people at the height of the rally. Yet no photographs, including those posted by the party itself, have supported that number.

Even during the frequent “palms up” chants intended to stir the crowd, 200 raised hands were nowhere in sight. Fernandes said this was only the beginning of the campaign and promised that the APNU will return for a grand final rally closer to the elections.

The poor turnout comes at a critical moment for APNU in Bartica. While these are general and regional elections set for September 1, the party’s grip on Bartica was tested at the last local government polls in 2023, when the PPP/C made historic gains.

In that election, the PPP/C pulled in 1,784 votes in Bartica — up from 1,145 in 2018 — while the APNU’s share slipped from a combined 1,867 votes (with the AFC) in 2018 to 1,601 votes on its own in 2023. It was tight enough that both parties secured the same number of seats on the Town Council — but the PPP/C won the chairmanship with the popular vote.

In the 2020 general election, APNU secured 4,813 votes in Region Seven compared to the PPP’s 3,728, with similar numbers on the regional ballot.

So the big question now: can the APNU rally its traditional base to hold onto Bartica and the wider Region Seven, or will the PPP/C’s momentum continue?

For Fernandes and her party, Saturday night’s turnout at Futu Square may be an early warning sign of shifting political ground in what was once considered one of the coalition’s safest bets.