Local Govt. Elections…. Parties submit lists of candidates incident-free

Jan 27, 2016 News

Guyana moved a step closer to the holding of Local Government Elections for the first time in 22 years, with the major political parties and some new kids on the block submitting their Lists of Candidates to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) yesterday.
Dressed in their traditional colours, supporters of the contesting parties marched and danced their way to the designated locations where Returning Officers from GECOM were on hand to accept their respective lists.
The parties will be contesting Local Government Elections in 71 Local Authority Areas, which includes 62 Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) and nine municipalities – a total of 580 constituencies.
While the two major political parties, A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change and the People’s Progressive Party Civic are contesting virtually all the Local Government constituencies, they are likely to face challenges for control of the most important one, Georgetown, from the newly formed Team Benschop, headed by Social Activist Mark Benschop, and the Healing the Nation Theocracy Party.
On the East Coast of Demerara, “demarcation lines” appeared to have been drawn, as supporters of the various parties concentrated their efforts in their traditional strongholds.
Nevertheless, yesterday’s exercise was completed incident-free.
Local Government Elections is scheduled for March 18.
A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) will head into the elections as a Coalition, as it did for the May 11, 2015, General and Regional Elections, and is expected to contest most if not all constituencies. The two parties have indicated that they have placed more emphasis on giving young people a chance at these elections.
The opposition People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) will contest 70 of the 71 Local Authority areas.
Local Government is the system of locally elected members representing their communities and making decisions on their behalf.