Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Nov 18, 2018 AFC Column, Features / Columnists
Local government is part of our culture now. While the AFC was unable to garner a large amount of votes at last week’s Local Government Elections, the statistics indicate to us that the party has grown.
Overall, voter turnout country-wide was unusually low, with over 60 percent of the eligible electorate choosing to stay away from the LGE. There has been a lot of disinterest, and some people are still skeptical about their ability to influence community/city changes, and to get rid of the deeply entrenched skullduggery that passes for neighbourhood democratic (local) government in town and city, in rural and urban areas.
If you wonder how the AFC has grown, here are some facts:-
1. The AFC contested three consecutive elections standing alone
2. In our first National and Regional election in 2006, total valid votes cast were 336,375 and AFC received 28,366 or 8.4%
3. In 2011, total valid votes cast were 342,236 with AFC receiving 35,555 or 10.32%
4. Now in 2018’s LGE, total valid votes cast in Georgetown were 28,436 and AFC received 3,059 or 10.75%
These statistics demonstrate growth. Let us now analyze the trend of results the PPP recorded in the same elections:-
• In 2006 they picked up 54% of total valid votes
• In 2011 they picked up 48.6% of total valid votes
• Now in 2018, in Georgetown they received 24.79% of total valid votes cast
There is a downward trend, but the PPP is blowing a lot of hot air to propagandize the results of last week’s LGE, even claiming a comprehensive victory over both APNU and the AFC.
The official results show voter turnout country-wide as unusually low, but that doesn’t prevent the PPP from overrating the party’s performance. It seems that they have not realized that thousands of their own traditionally supporters also did not turn out to vote for the corrupt, partisan PPP neighbourhood politicians they had been dealing with for many years. They too suffered from ‘voters’ apathy’ this year and chose to stay home.
All the AFC wants is for all of our countrymen to really understand what the LGE means for them. We are indeed disappointed at the high level of disinterest, but the AFC is not going to blame anyone for the low level of voter education. As for the open intimidation of our candidates in Berbice and some Interior regions, we have found ways to deal with it.
For the just concluded elections, we found that our citizens were just not fired up about the elections. In Georgetown, many remain convinced that City Hall “will never do anything for (them)”, i.e. not clear/clean the drains and alleyways, manicure the parapets, desilt the canals that cause flooding in South Georgetown and Charlestown, etc. We heard a lot of, “Wha difference votin’ gon mek?” One citizen said, “Voting is a waste of time because like nobody can’t convince City Hall that the Parking Meter project is not for now”.
But there is soon going to be change at City Hall brought about by the few people who voted.
Local Government has become part of our culture again. Only four LGE’s have been held since 1971, the year after Guyana became a Republic. Then the PPP organized a single LGE in 1994, two years after the party came to power.
Meanwhile, the news outlets aligned to the opposition continue to insinuate that the AFC was decimated at the recent polls and that the party is dead. That’s politicking and the statistics above prove them wrong.
They suggested that the low voter turnout was due to disappointment with the Coalition, but the available statistics show that in all four LGE’s since 1971, voter turnout has been abysmally low. The one held in 2016 just a few months after the nation had celebrated the change of government for which it had been yearning for 20 years, is a case in point. Turnout was about 50%.
The PPP is doing us a favour by underestimating the Coalition’s determination to prepare this nation for its economic and infrastructural transformation from mediocrity to an exporter of oil and gas. Everyone is aware that will not happen with the PPP in charge of the nation’s purse.
This is the party that turned our economy into a transshipment point for hardcore narcotics. This party led the reign of terror that featured extra-judicial killings by death squads and hitmen. This party presided over an economy fuelled by illegal drugs, un-customed importation of state-of-the-art guns and spying equipment; un-checked smuggling of food, alcohol, spare parts, etc; rampant tax avoidance; and criminal neglect of the city which earned us the nickname, The Garbage City.
HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?
Insensitive, vulgar, opportunistic, power grabbing, brainless … these are some of the printable adjectives used by citizens last Thursday when the news broke that the Opposition Leader intends to file a No Confidence motion in Parliament against the Coalition Government. He is obviously counting on the absence of certain MPs.
The backdrop consists of H.E. President Granger currently undergoing intensive treatment for cancer in Cuba while PM Nagamootoo performs the duties of President; and one AFC Leader is preparing to leave for the long-awaited negotiations with the United Kingdom Environmental Agency that had placed an international ban on Guyana’s Greenheart in 2015.
Many of Guyana’s forest products exporters have watched their income drop dramatically since that ban, and they have been unable to do anything about it. The FPA and other agencies had asked our Government to intervene with the UK Government and finally, the Natural Resources Minister has the opportunity to meet face to face with the relative agencies, diplomats and politicians in England.
But, the PPP decides that their desperation for control of the national purse is more important than our Greenheart exporters’ livelihoods. Is this the party that says it is ‘for the people’?
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
Apr 19, 2024
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