Leader of the Opposition, Aubrey Norton, has rubbished claims by PPP General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo that A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) is only contesting 45 per cent of the constituencies in the upcoming Local Government Elections.
With the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) yet to verify the number of areas being contested, both major parties; the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) and APNU, have gone on a public relations campaign with their own spin.
GECOM remains the only authority to provide such information through its various mechanisms.
Jagdeo during his regular press conference on Thursday at Freedom House stated that APNU is only contesting in 279 of the 610 constituencies and by his calculations that is roughly 45 per cent of all the constituencies in the country.
Furthermore, he said that when APNU candidates are combined with those from groups and other individuals contesting the LGE, it only accounts for 327 of the 610 constituencies, and as such, this amounts to a no contest in about 283 of the 610 constituencies.
The General Secretary said that this virtually means a landslide victory for the party since APNU in actuality is only contesting 24 of the 80 local authority areas (LAA).
Jagdeo posited that this points to a disaster for APNU under the leadership of Norton, whose party is only contesting in the major strongholds.
“This is for a national party like the APNU to contest in only 45 per cent of the constituencies in the country is a total disaster for that party, under his leadership”, he said.
In response, the Leader of the Opposition when contacted rubbished the claims. He said that they are contesting in some 90 per cent of the constituencies
“Jagdeo is a pathological liar. Look, we are contesting all constituencies in Georgetown, all constituencies in New Amsterdam, all constituencies in Linden, all constituencies in Anna Regina, Rose Hall, in Corriverton, I think one might be out. We are contesting. The only place we are not contesting in which we said, we had a problem with is Lethem, which means more than 90 per cent of the local authorities of the town council by us.”
According to the Opposition Leader, it begs the question, “Where would have the Vice President gotten his incorrect information from?”
Over the past two days beyond the issue of a no-contest, a number of issues have been raised in terms of the forgery of lists.
Both parties have come forward with allegations of signatures being forged by the other. These complaints have reached GECOM’s Returning Officers.
And according to some party officials, the Guyana Police Force has also been notified about the matter.
With such occurrences, Norton said that Jagdeo is seeking to misdirect the conversation on the issue of forgery to talk about percentage of representation. “Jagdeo is just trying to distract from the forgery we have identified.”
Further, he charged that it appears as though the election is being controlled by the PPP/C and so it remains difficult to say how the matter will be dealt with.
June 12 is listed as election day when Guyanese are expected to choose leaders to sit on their municipal and neighbourhood democratic councils. The last LGEs were held in November 2018.
