Chairman of the APNU and Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform, Aubrey Norton today said he is not too bothered by some of his party members who have crossed the floor to join ranks with the governing People’s Progressive Party for the local elections.
In a statement, Mr. Norton said he believes the APNU’s support remains solid in its strongholds.
“We know from our support base on the ground that they will support us and we will beat the PPP in all of our strongholds and in many other areas,” a confident Norton said.
Norton who has been coming under criticism from many within his party over his leadership style believes the political work that he has been doing on the ground will see the APNU holding on to its base, despite the hopes of the PPP to take over many of its constituencies.
‘We have been doing our political work on the ground in Georgetown and all around and we will continue to do our political work and we will beat the People’s Progressive Party and that is all that matters,” Norton said.
When compared to the 2016 and 2018 Local Government Elections, the APNU Contingent in the capital city was relatively small, but the Leader of the List for the Municipality of Georgetown, and PNC Georgetown District Chairman Troy Garraway, said the party has a well-seasoned list, which also includes new faces.
“Among the constituency candidates, you are going to see a lot of fresh faces, but we have also blend them with some experience, so you will also see some experienced councilors coming back. We think, we shouldn’t only send new persons to the council, we need the experience, we need to have them with us. So, we have need faces like Kibwe Copeland, Philip Drayton, and we have the experienced ones in the form of the Deputy Mayor of Georgetown, Alfred Mentore and Gregory Fraser,” Mr Garraway explained.
Asked about former City Mayor Patricia Chase-Greene’s departure from the APNU, and its possible impact, Garraway contended that as a Councillor and Mayor, Chase-Green did not do enough to address the concerns of her constituency.
“Absolutely not, no blow for APNU. Patricia Chase-Greene has not been serving the constituency in which she was elected to represent, that is constituency 12, I am her replacement in that constituency. The residents of constituency 12 elected Patricia Chase-Greene both in 2016 and 2018, and if you move around the constituency, you will see Patricia Chase-Greene has been absent, no one in the community has been seeing her for the last three or four years, so really she has not been doing what she was elected to do. So, we don’t see it as a blow, anyone she was going to be replaced”, he said.
At the last Local Government Elections in 2018, the APNU won 21 of the 30 seats for the Municipality of Georgetown while the PPP/C secured seven (7) seats and the Alliance For Change (AFC) two seats in the mixed system of Proportional Representation and First-Past-The-Post.
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