Following Monday’s Local Government Elections (LGE) the capital city of Georgetown will remain under the control of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) which has secured 21 of its 30 seats but the opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic has significantly increased its position at the council earning a total of seven seats at the Horseshoe table.
APNU’s national coalition partner the Alliance for Change (AFC) contesting on its own managed to secure two seats.
According to the official results released by Returning Officer Duarte Hetsberger, a total of 28,868 or 28.3% of the 119,374 eligible electors in the city chose to exercise their franchise. Of that number 432 ballots were rejected and 28,436 votes counted in the Proportional Representation (PR) aspect of the election.
This year APNU once again secured the majority of 18,127 votes with the PPP/C managing 7,050 while the AFC secured 3,059. The United Republican Party was awarded 106 votes while 94 electors voted for the Georgetown National Service Party.
Using an electoral quota of 1,896 votes per seat GECOM awarded nine PR seats to APNU, four to the PPP/C and two to the AFC.
These results show that in the absence of the independent groups which contested elections in 2016 the PPP/C has been able to double its PR seats from the two it held on the previous council.
Team Legacy and Benschop for Mayor had each won a PR seat on the last council while the combined APNU+AFC had won 11 PR seats.
In 2016, APNU and the AFC held 25 seats. After contesting separately they now hold two seats less – 23.
However it is in the First Past the Post (FPTP) component that several major upsets were realized with the PPP/C managing to capture three constituency seats, two of which were won easily by the APNU+AFC in 2016.
The Kitty/Subryanville area which makes up Constituency 2 was won comfortably by the APNU+AFC candidate Carlyle Goring in 2016 with 1,618 votes.
However this year only 1,920 votes were cast in that constituency. Of this number 877 were cast for the PPP/C candidate Nalissa Ferguson, 756 for the APNU’s Shondel Hope and 160 for the AFC’s Arnold Sukhraj.
These votes show a clear decrease in the number of coalition supporters as the 864 votes Ferguson had managed in 2016 was not nearly enough to challenge the coalition. The APNU had been counting on the popular Hope who is secretary of the PNCR Georgetown District to carry the constituency but she failed to do so.
In the areas of Cummings Lodge and Turkeyen which make up Constituency 6 another popular candidate Andrea Marks failed to win a seat at the horseshoe table.
Marks who previously held a PR seat has been an outspoken advocate for vendors’ rights and agitated constantly for works to be done in her constituency; she will however not be returning to council.
The Constituency 6 seat is now held by PPP/C candidate Param Persaud who secured 1,279 of the votes cast while Marks managed 1,066 and AFC candidate Sylvester Shim garnered 148 votes.
In 2016 the APNU+AFC candidate Lyndon Hillman had managed 2.016 votes compared to 1,366 votes for Tamashwar Budhoo of the PPP/C. That result showed again a large falloff in votes for APNU.
Meanwhile in Constituency 3 residents of Bel Air Gardens, Bel Air Springs, Prashad Nagar, North East & North West Campbellville were not won over by the flamboyant Astel Collins who campaigned for the APNU. Collins who secured 528 votes lost to Dimitri Ali of the PPP/C who garnered 849 votes.
This constituency has always been closely contested with the coalition candidate Junior Garrett winning the seat by a mere 72 votes in 2016. Garrett, who has since passed away, secured 794 votes while the PPP/C candidate Ramchandra Kissoon garnered 722 votes.
Meanwhile Mayor Patricia Chase-Green returns to council with a significant mandate from her constituency of Tucville – North Ruimveldt. Chase-Green secured 2,212 votes, the largest number of votes secured by any one candidate. Her support was miles ahead of her nearest competitor Brian Nobriega of the AFC who garnered 662 votes. Other candidates in this constituency were Maxine Padmore of the PPP/C and Independent Candidate Herbert Maloney who managed 92 and 34 votes respectively.
The former Mayor had also secured the constituency in 2016 with a whopping 3,683 voted miles ahead of her closest competitor Linden Hinds of Team Legacy.
Deputy Mayor Akeem Peter secured a similar mandate with 1,473 electors casting their votes in his favour compared to 419 for the PPP/C candidate.
Across all constituencies, electors rejected Independent candidates who were only able to secure a total of 1,323 votes across all eight constituencies in which they contested.
