The People’s National Congress-led, A Partnership for National Unity, was able to hold on to the top local government prize of the capital city of Georgetown, but the governing People’s Progressive Party has been able to pick up additional seats on the City Council.
According to declared results from the Guyana Elections Commission, both the APNU and PPP were able to increase their vote count over the 2018 elections as more persons turned out to vote in the capital.
While the APNU picked up an additional 2,712 votes over the last local elections in Georgetown, the PPP was able to pick up an additional 5,503 votes.
Based on the results, the APNU will move into the Georgetown City Council with a total of 19 seats while the PPP will have 11 seats at the horseshoe table. The PPP picked up additional seats owing to its overall improved performance in the City Council elections.
In 2018, the APNU had a total of 21 seats, while the PPP had a total of 7 seats.
The Alliance for Change, which won two seats in 2018, did not participate in this year’s Local Government Elections.
The governing PPP placed heavy bets on some of the crossover candidates from the APNU being able to flip some constituencies but those candidates were unable to do so.
Former APNU member Tricia Richards was badly beaten in her constituency, while the constituency of former Mayor Patricia Chase-Greene remained comfortably in the pocket of the APNU. Chase-Greene was not the constituency candidate for the PPP. Instead, she was placed on the party’s Proportional Representation list, which still allows the party to place her in the Council.
Popular Broadcaster Malcolm Ferreira was unable to deliver the Albouystown/Charlestown Constituency to the PPP, despite the party’s heavy campaigning in the community. Ferreira lost to the APNU’s Traves Ellis by more 166 votes. Back in 2016, the broadcaster easily won the constituency as part of the group, Team Legacy. The APNU did not compete in the constituency in that year.
The APNU sustained two embarrassing loses in the constituencies previously won by the sitting Mayor and Deputy Mayor.
In Constituency 1, which was comfortably won by current Mayor Ubraj Narine in 2018, the party’s 2023 candidate, Phillip Drayton lost the Constituency to the PPP’s Mohamed Isfehani by a narrow 61 votes.
Narine was a no-show for most of the campaign season, as he traveled abroad for more than two months. He joined the campaigning for his party’s candidate in the area last weekend following his return.
In Constituency 4, which is the home of current Deputy Mayor Alfred Mentore, he lost his seat by 31 votes to the PPP’s Alfonso DeArmas-Archbald.
Mentore has been the Councillor for the area since 2016, when Local Government Elections returned after an absence of more than 20 years.
In Constituency 6, which was won by the PPP in 2018 by more than 200 votes, the party has lost the area to the APNU candidate in this year’s elections by three votes and is now requesting a recount.
Overall, PPP General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo has indicated that his party is pleased with its performance in Georgetown. The APNU Chairman Aubrey Norton said he is pleased with his party’s performance in holding on to the capital city. He said the Opposition will be pushing and agitating to ensure the City Council is fully supported by the Central Government.
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