After its sweeping success at Monday’s Local Government Polls, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) is now finalising names to be submitted for its Proportional Representation (PR) candidates at the various councils for which it has won.
General Secretary Dr Bharrat Jagdeo disclosed on Thursday’s press conference that the entire party machinery has fanned out across the country in this regard, with the aim of submitting a list of names to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) by next week.
“The entire party machinery has had to go around the country. They’re starting today (Thursday) and tomorrow (Friday) to work with the LAAs to select our PR candidates because we won a large number of PR seats a part from the constituency candidates,” he informed.
According to Jagdeo, his party is mobilised and ready to deliver since they would have won 66 of the 80 Local Authority Areas (LAAs).
“The party is busy at work now and we have a lot of work to do because we won in a lot of areas. They (APNU) probably have less [work] because they didn’t win in so many areas. So, the party is mobilised, ready, excited.”
The PPP has also announced that based on internal calculations, it has won 906 of the 1,220 seats at the recent LGE. This represents 75 percent of the seats contested and is significantly higher than the 779 seats gained in 2018.
Meanwhile, the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition had won 390 seats in 2018. As a standalone party this time around, APNU reportedly claimed only 275 seats, or about 22 percent.
The General Secretary told the press, “Now, 75 percent of all the seats contested in the country, both PR and constituency seats were won by the PPP. APNU has won about 22 per cent of those seats…By any definition, 75 percent win is a massive win.”
“I said if we crossed the 60 LAA threshold, then that would be a massive victory for us and we have won the majority of the votes and outright wins, we had more than 60 LAAs.”
Jagdeo explained that now that the elections are over, the party will work on fulfilling the promises made on the campaign trail.
The politician assured, “The reason we went out during the campaign is to give people the assurance that every promise made by the candidates by the PPP, that we stand behind those promises.”
Asked whether it would be difficult to deliver their promises in APNU-controlled councils, he noted that the intention is to bring development to all areas despite resistance.
“We laid out a plan to transform the city, as we have a plan for every region… We have a plan for every single area. I know what the plans are because we have laid them out and we’re implementing them. We plan to go ahead. We have a plan to change the city and it would have been immeasurably easier too.”
This time around, the PPP would have claimed several of the APNU-controlled areas, and Jagdeo also pointed out that there is shift from race-based voting – an issue which has faced the country for decades in the political landscape.
He opined, “They recognised now that the PPP won votes in many areas that are 100 percent Afro-guyanese and significant number of votes. That means people are moving away from voting on the basis of race to issues.”
