General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo today said his party had no formal negotiations with the APNU for last Friday’s vote for Chairs and Vice-Chairs of Regional Democratic Councils. He said it was bad faith negotiations between WIN and APNU that led to the results in some of the regions, especially in Regions 4, 8 and 10.

Mr. Jagdeo claimed that it was the WIN and APNU that had formal discussions, but he said he believes that it is the WIN party that made the talks collapse due to their unreasonable demands.

He said although the WIN party is claiming it should have control in Regions where it has the most votes, it did not adopt that posture in other regions.

‘So, there was no collaboration between the PPP and the APNNU, but they (WIN) had to make an issue of it because they offended that their partners on the other side did not collaborate with them to give them the Chairmanship in all of these Regions, if in Regions where the plurality of votes are won by the PPP. They essentially wanted an anti-democratic system, that’s what WIN wanted” Mr. Jagdeo stated.

On the question of the Region 10 vote which resulted in a tie, Mr. Jagdeo said the PPP did not tell its Councillors there how to vote. He said they were given the option to choose whichever party they believe can best represent the Region.

He said the people of Region 10 did not overwhelmingly vote for the PPP and he is open to the option to have his councillors abstain from the next round of voting, although he said that is not a formal position.

“We have no interest in the leadership of Region 10, the People want WIN and they want APNU, they will get WIN and APNU and in Region 7 too, they will get WIN and APNU or WIN or APNU and we allowed our Councillors in that Region to vote however they wish to vote, we didn’t direct them,’ Mr. Jagdeo said.

Mr. Jagdeo also clarified the situation in Region 8 where the PPP with  7 seats got the Chairmanship and the APNU with 1 seat got the Vice Chairmanship.

He said there was no collaboration with APNU, stating that the one extra vote the PPP received could have come from any Councillor including a Councillor from WIN to give the PPP candidate the edge as it relates to the Chairmanship. He told reporters that both the PPP and WIN nominated the APNU Candidate for the Vice Chairman position, so there was no election since she was the only person for that position.

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