Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Aubrey Norton, on Thursday said the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), will participate in Local Government Elections (LGE) nationwide. The elections are scheduled for Monday, 12 June, 2023.
Monday the APNU submitted its lists of Candidates to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM). The APNU is not contesting all the 610 constituencies, which will be a first for the PNC under whose government the current Local Government system was instituted.
According to Norton they did not arrive at the decision to participate readily. “Several of our concerns over the electoral system remain extant and unresolved. GECOM Chairperson, for instance, has failed to address our main demand for a clean voters list and the call for biometrics at the place of poll.”
He said their determination to participate in elections was driven by one determinative factor. “And that is, we could not boycott and thereby allow the vindictive PPP to get control of the local councils in Guyana, especially our strongholds. Nor could we allow the PPP to occupy all council seats in its traditional constituencies.”
He made it known participation in the election does not mean the party and partnership have dropped the demand for a clean voters list “On the contrary, we intend to intensify our campaign for a clean voters list and biometrics.”
Noting that in several other countries, the elections commissions strive to make their electoral systems more secure and trustworthy he said GECOM under Claudette Singh has achieved the opposite: the erosion of public trust and confidence in our elections.
Norton said Singh and the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government must bear all blame for this state of affairs and for any political fallout from the elections.
Norton stated the APNU and PNC intend to campaign to win as many councils and council seats as possible to (i) protect our supporters in their communities from the viciousness of the PPP, (ii) to be positioned to expose the incompetence and corruption of the PPP and to resist its excesses in communities, (iii) to represent and give voice to the concerns and demands of all Guyanese, (iv) to ensure that the PPP does not further destroy local democracy any further, and continue to advance its dictatorship at the local level, and (v) ) to demonstrate to the people that we are a credible alternative to govern this country.
