Guyanese Online

Ralph Ramkarran

The results of the local government elections should give no political comfort to our political parties. The PPP won 48 out of 71 NDC elections, similar to 1994 when it won 48 out of 65 and 28,000 more votes than the APNU+AFC. The APNU+AFC won 5 municipalities, the PPP 3 and 1 is a tie. The turnout at the local government elections was low, at least lower than the national elections, as occurs almost everywhere, and it is therefore unsafe to make any enduring political conclusions from the results. But some glaring issues have emerged.

In the 1994 local government elections for the Georgetown municipality the PPP/Civic won 8 of the 30 seats. The GGG (Good and Green Guyana) won 12 and the PNC 10, a total of 22. In these elections the PPP won only 2 seats. There was a suggestion that the result was a consequence of the PPP/C Government’s abandonment of the City. While this may have played a role, these types of failures have only a marginal impact on our rigid ethnic voting patterns. The PNC’s 40 percent of the vote at the 1992 elections when every political indicator suggested that it should have been wiped out proves the point.

Read more … NO POLITICAL COMFORT – Written by Ralph Ramkarran