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A very complicated Georgetown election result

Mar 22, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Sunday night on a Channel 9 panel to analyze the Local Government Election process and the results, I mentioned that the Alliance For Change was seriously affected by the rural voting patterns. In response, Vincent Alexander said that those who voted for the PPP were the die-hard PPP supporters.  But even if that was so, those Indians who stayed home, chose not to vote for AFC. It will need a separate column to analyze the implications of the 2016 LGE for the future of the AFC.
But the result has far-reaching implications for the PNC, not APNU, –after 2020, I think there will be no other parties in the APNU arena but the PNC). If one goes through the Georgetown LGE result with a fine teeth comb, the PNC should be happy. First, the low turn out is not what is important in assessing the winner and loser.
So context comes into play here. As an example, we can start with the Action Tyre owner, Ron Persaud, who won constituency 7. He spent a lot of money on his campaign. His popular business place on Croal Street was plastered with huge posters.
Here are the results. Of 1,116 votes, Persaud with his vehicle of resources and visibility got 724 ballots. Three unknown persons, in comparison to Persaud, together pulled 392. This was hardly a landslide. Almost 200 votes together went to Team Benschop and Youth for Local Government. In that constituency, Indians voted for the PPP candidate, Bisham Kuppen but African Guyanese split their votes between APNU-AFC, Team Benschop and Youth for Local Government. The candidates for the last two groups were African-Guyanese. My point is that if you go through the voting pattern for the LGE 2016 for Georgetown, African Guyanese in the constituency structure did not rush to give APNU-AFC a landslide and that is because African-Guyanese in Georgetown voted for other Black candidates
Let’s go to constituency 14 which takes in South Ruimveldt and its adjoining areas. This is an historic PNC enclave. It saw a turn out of more than eighty percent at the General Elections last May.  All the candidates were Africans. I will leave out the 66 votes the PPP got.  Sherod Duncan of APNU-AFC, with the exception of Mark Benschop in that constituency, is far better known than any other of the contestants.  Duncan got 1, 828 ballots. The other five contestants among themselves (I have left out the PPP person) polled 1,137. For a formidable PNC fortress that constituency 14 is, African Guyanese gave 1,137 votes to other Black contestants.
Duncan beat them by roughly 700 votes. Is that a landslide?
Now let us go to context. In the context of the APNU-AFC machinery, 822 votes went to non APNU candidates in constituency 14 that hardly anyone in Guyana knows. I have subtracted the 315 Benschop got because he is a nationally known personality.  My point is that 1,137 votes out of 2965 went to Black candidates other than the ruling party. That to my mind, these statistics have implications for PNC (not APNU) politics in the future.
Let’s move on to constituency 9 which takes in Lodge and its adjoining area. This is even a more die-hard receptacle of support for the PNC.  Leaving out the PPP votes, five independent candidates, all of whom are African Guyanese, picked up 1, 184 votes to 1, 655 for the APNU-AFC candidate. That is certainly not a beating. The big machinery of the APNU-AFC with its vast resources conceded substantial votes in Georgetown to candidates that, outside of Mark Benschop, people didn’t know. Take Ivan Bentham in constituency 9. Bentham, an individual candidate pulled 88 votes. He told me that he did not put up a single poster.
The tantalizing thing in one’s mind is what would have been the LGE result in Georgetown if people like Bentham and the dozens and dozens of others like him, had a well oiled machine with big bucks and big support. The brutal, frightening fact is that large unknown persons stood up against the might of the ruling coalition and captured a large number of votes in those fifteen constituencies. Independents will do vastly better in three years’ time.
My point is that the outcomes in this recently concluded LGE have extensive implications for 2020. I couldn’t believe that Albert Cromwell, AKS, “Bulldog” who is before the court for assaulting another candidate carted off 44 votes in constituency 2. Please tell me that this is not true.

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