PPP motivated to work harder in all LAAs following resounding victory at LGE – Jagdeo

With the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) achieving a resounding victory at the recently concluded 2023 Local Government Elections (LGEs), General Secretary, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo said the party is encouraged to work ‘harder’ in every local authority area.

Although the party did not win the majority seats in Georgetown, Linden, and New Amsterdam, the numbers significantly improved when compared to the 2018 LGEs, and has pushed the party to work even harder.

“In Kwakwani, Linden, New Amsterdam, South Georgetown, in North Georgetown, in Bartica, in Mahdia, in the PPP strongholds…We’re encouraged to work because of these results, harder in these communities,” Dr Jagdeo told media operatives at Freedom House on Thursday.

Dr Jagdeo also gave assurance that every promise made during the campaign trail by the PPP candidates will be fulfilled.  

While rejecting the APNU’s notion that the turnout for the 2023 LGE is a rejection of the PPP, the GS pointed out that the turnout was even lower when the APNU+AFC coalition was in office.

However, even with the low turnout at the local elections, the PPP has managed to make significant inroads in several of the local authority areas.  

“They should be worried that with such a turnout that we trunks them, much less if we had a higher turnout. In fact, they don’t think sometimes what they say,” he asserted. Even as the city recorded an increase in voter turnout, APNU votes declined by 1.6 per cent, while the PPP managed to increase votes by 78 per cent and the general secretary pointed out that this is what the APNU is trying to conceal from the public.

This, he said, is a “thrashing” in the main opposition party’s stronghold.

“If you look at some of the constituencies, you will see how close the race was in many of them … with maybe another few hundred votes we could have flipped the city, because we lost three or four constituencies narrowly.

“This is a thrashing, a defeat by any standard and no amount of spin will change this,” he added.

In the Bartica Municipality, APNU saw a decrease from 1,767 votes in 2018 LGEs to 1,601 votes in 2023, while the PPP earned 1,784 votes this year, when compared to 1,1145 votes in, the 2018 LGEs. This is a 79 per cent increase with the same turnout as in the city.

Increases were also recorded in the Municipalities of Mahdia, New Amsterdam, and Linden.