Demerara Waves Online News- Guyana Riding on the Crest of Truth
Last Updated on Tuesday, 13 November 2018, 14:59 by Denis Chabrol
The opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has raked in seven seats in Georgetown, with its closest rival, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU),winning a total of 21 seats and the Alliance For Change two seats, the Guyana Elections Commission said.
In declaring the results for Georgetown, Returning Officer Duarte Hetsberger said PPP got four proportional and three constituency seats; APNU got 9 PR seats and 12 constituency seats and AFC’s two came from the proportional representation component of the polls.
“That is a massive, massive, massive gain in Georgetown,” PPP General Secretary, Bharrat Jagdeo told a news conference.
GECOM said the turnout was 28.3 percent of the 119,374 eligible voters in Georgetown. There were 432 rejected ballots, 112 spoilt and one tendered.
In terms of the the PR component, the results show that APNU captured 18,127 votes; PPP 7,050 and AFC 3,059, United Republican Party 106 and the GNS Party 94.
A senior APNU activist and senior official of the Guyana Elections Commission confirmed that APNU’s Shondel Hope (756) lost to the PPP’s Nalisa Ferguson (877) in constituency 2 (Kitty north, Central & South & Subryanville); APNU’s Astell Collins (528) was defeated by the PPP’s Dmitri Ali (849) in constituency 3 (Bel Air Gardens, Bel Air Springs, Prashad Nagar, North East & North West Campbellville) and Andriea Marks (1,066) of the APNU lost to the Param Persaud (1,279) of the PPP in (constituency 6) Cummings Lodge/North, Central and South Pattensen Turkeyen.
Incumbent Mayor, Patricia Chase-Green won 2,212 votes in constituency 12, despite much publicised concerns about her management of the City. Her closest rival was Bryan De Nobrega of the Alliance For Change who got 262 votes, leaving the PPP’s Maxine Padmore with 92.
That means a significant improvement on the PPP’s performance in Georgetown, widely regarded as a stronghold of the People’s National Congress Reform/ A Partnership for National Unity, compared to the 2016 local polls when it had barely picked up two seats in the PR component of the elections.
A GECOM official could not immediately say if the Alliance For Change would be able to scrape up at least one PR seat.
The 30 seats in Georgetown are equally split between PR and first past the post.