3 or 10; what percent of the LGE vote did the AFC get?

Nov 23, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Last Sunday in its Kaieteur News column, the AFC wrote that it maintained its 10 percent possession of election votes, which came its way when it first contested in 2006. I replied to that in one of my columns (Tuesday, November 20, 2018, “The AFC personifies everything that is wrong with this nation.”). The AFC did not get 10 percent in the national poll of 2015, because it did not contest as the AFC.
I arrived at 7 percent based on the areas I thought the AFC was strong in, but I could be wrong. For example, I did not include Georgetown. Therefore, my 7 number could be wrong. But I have my doubts about 10. Also, if they got 10, how come the winning margin for APNU+AFC was less than five thousand votes? I checked the GECOM report and I saw terrible losses in 2015 in areas that the AFC did well in 2011. The statistics is there for all to see.
Also the consensus in the PNC hierarchy is that in 2015, the AFC did not bring in that expected 10. Analysts must at all times remember in their research on the AFC, that the PNC chose not to accept the 60-40 distribution as requested by the AFC for the 2018 LGE, because PNC big wigs (yes, including its leader David Granger) did not believe the AFC had the same electoral strength it had in 2006 and 2011. The PNC has been proven right by the GECOM statistics, which is available.
Last Monday, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo at his press briefing stated from the LGE results, the AFC received 3 percent of the total votes. I am typing this column on Thursday morning, yet the AFC has not replied to Jagdeo’s insistence. That is very strange, seeing that the leaders of the AFC have publicly mentioned it three times that the AFC secured the 10 figure.
Who is right and who is being mischievous? Both PPP and AFC have access to the GECOM results. Even if GECOM’s election numbers are not yet official, there are adequate numbers covering more than 95 percent of ballots cast to provide solid evidence of what percentage each contestant received.
If Mr. Jagdeo is just being propagandistic, why since Monday has the AFC not confronted his fiction? Are we dealing with rocket science here? Is it impossible to determine out of 200,000 votes how many a certain party received? Jagdeo is contending that out of 208,000 votes, the AFC got 8,000. This was carried in almost a full page reporting in this newspaper in its edition for Wednesday.
This is a damning indictment against the AFC, that any self-respecting party has to reply to, but more important to note, the AFC has often responded to lesser important emanations from the PPP. Why has it not proven the PPP wrong after four days have elapsed since Jagdeo’s pronouncement?
Do we have to wait for Nagamootoo’s Sunday Chronicle column to find out if it is 3 or 10? Do we have to wait for the AFC’s column in this Sunday’s edition of this newspaper to know if it is 3 or 10? Of course, whether it is 3 or 10, it really looks bad for the AFC. If it is 10, it means with three years of power, the AFC still has not grown. If it is 3, then only AFC fanatics will insist that the AFC is a robust electoral party.
But this is Guyana, where the bizarre has long become the normal and where the macabre has become the ordinary. Many AFC high-level personnel have watched Guyanese in their eyes and said the 2018 election results were a good showing for the AFC. Two of these persons are nice humans that I find to be decent people. They told me that. I didn’t have the mental energy to reply.
I haven’t done the research, but I ask the following question; is there a country in the world today where a party is in government, it contested local government elections, and did not win even one local authority? I mean not even one. And the available authorities were not 10 or 20, but 88. Is there nowhere in the ten Regions of Guyana, that the AFC could have squeaked in at least one NDC victory?
The following words keep rushing all over my mind when I write on the 2018 LGE – “you mean not one, not even one.” Come on man! The AFC should have pulled in at least one. My God! Just one, man! Just one!

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Latest News