Amid fierce objections and threats to call in the police, People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Councillor Clemsford Belgravewas was elected Chairman of the Region 4 Regional Democratic Council – creating history.

It is the first time that the PPP/C has won the chairmanship in Region 4.

Belgrave secured a total of 18 votes to become the Regional Chairman, while his lone opponent, the APNU’s Shanika Haynes raked in only eight votes during an election presided over by the Regional Executive Officer (REO), Donald Gajraj.

There were a total of nine (9) spoiled ballots with seven of those ballots completely blank.
Ahead of the vote, 35 councillors were sworn in by Gajraj, and that proceeded orderly, with the councillors – 17 from PPP/C, nine from APNU, eight from We Invest in Nationhood (WIN), and one from Forward Guyana Movement (FGM) taking their oath of office.

But it was Gajraj’s announcement that voting for both the chairmanship and the vice chairmanship would take place via secret ballot that sparked outrage.
The opposition comprising APNU, WIN, and FGM fiercely objected with Haynes challenging the method on the floor.

But stamping his authority amid the ruckus, Gajraj made it clear that he was the presiding officer, and his decision was final. Issuing a stern warning to the councilors, Gajraj said failure to heed to his warning to remain calm would see him asking certain councilors to leave the meeting.

It was not long after that the voting commenced by secret ballot and Belgrave emerged as the winner. The WIN party later announced that all of its councillors handed in blank ballots.

Belgrave said he is ready for the challenge, and would work with the 35 member council to advance development within the Region in keeping with the Government’s agenda.

“Our priority as a region is to move Region 4 forward with the Government…At the level of the PPP we would have garnered a lot of votes and support in Region 4. And today showed the other support that we would have gotten in terms of electing the chair and vice chair and this is a very historic moment for us,” he said.

With the Council highly divided along political lines, Belgrave said his intention is to work with everyone.
Meanwhile, PPP/C Councilor Deoraj Nauth was elected Vice Chairman. He secured 17 votes, while Haynes, who was also nominated for the vice chairmanship only got 11 vote. Nauth said he was thankful to the Government for putting their trust in him to help lead the region.

“Region 4 is very very important in the national development of this country because it caters for more than 50% of our population and Region 4 will continue to work towards a national policy of the government to move Guyana forward,” Nauth said.

A clearly disappointed Haynes told reporters that the process was not fair or democratic and that the presiding officer had failed to comply with the laws.

“In the 28:02 usually the provision is made where the clerk who is carrying out the election, the REO, he would request of the council that has been elected how they will vote whether it would be secret ballot or by show of hand. He did not do that, he proceeded to say it has to be secret ballot and in my view that is where we have issues with our democracy because when you revert to that knowing that you are doing the under hand businesses here and there, these are the results,” Haynes said.

At least one of Haynes’ APNU councilors either abstained or voted for the PPP/C based on the voting pattern. However, Haynes said she did not know.

“I can’t say that because of course, it was a secret ballot. What I can presume from what I saw, we had lots of blank ballots maybe somebody did not write on it,” Haynes said.
WIN’s incoming Member of Parliament Tabitha Sarabo-Halley, who observed the election, told News Source that ahead of today’s elections discussions were held with APNU, and it was agreed that WIN would support APNU for the chairmanship, and WIN would be nominated for the Vice Chairmanship with the backing of APNU.

However, Sarabo-Halley said at the last minute, WIN took a decision to abstain after APNU took a decision to team up with PPP/C in Region 10.

“Our original decision was to support the APNU for the position of chairmanship and hopefully they would support us for the position of vice chairman, that was the original intention but as we got into the elections we got word what happened in Region 10 where the APNU and the PPP apparently worked together to stop WIN from actually getting the chairmanship of Region 10, and based on that we wanted to see what would really happen in Region 4 without our vote, how the votes would go, so what we did was to abstain,” Sarabo-Halley said

Sarabo-Halley said from all indication, at least one councilor from APNU voted with the PPP/C to elect Belgrave Chairman.

She said the actions of APNU has set a worrying trend heading into Parliament with the three opposition parties are expected to work together.

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