APNU wins all eight constituencies in Linden

Jun 14, 2023 News

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…PPP happy about increase in votes

Kaieteur News – The A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) is celebrating its landslide victory in its stronghold Linden at the Local Government Elections that were held on Monday. Out of a total of 10,466 valid votes cast, the APNU secured 8002 votes allowing the party to hold on to all eight constituencies contested and six out of the eight First Past the Post seats. The contesting People’s Progressive Party (PPP) managed two First Past the Post seats which is an increase to the current one that they have.

In Kwakwani, APNU picked up four seats while PPP picked up two. There was high celebration in Linden at the announcement of the preliminary results given the PPP has campaigned heavily in the town and was boasting of making major inroads. The party also attracted large crowds at its campaign events.

Sharma Solomon who is Linden’s mayor hopeful however, said he was always confident about the victory. Solomon emerged as the candidate with the most votes with 1,980 votes in constituency one while Lessa Thorne secured 1,399 for constituency seven.

Solomon said the serving council will be driven on addressing the issues facing the people. Residents of Linden have for years expressed concern about the council not aggressively tackling issues such as garbage collection and solid waste management, rehabilitation of municipality roads and drainage.

On elections day Solomon said, I have done quite a lot in terms of ensuring we bring representation to the people of Amelia’s Ward and we have advanced many of the causes they may have in terms of seeing Amelia’s Ward as one of the largest communities in the Caribbean,” he said.

Relative to all the candidates, Solomon said the APNU candidates are experienced professional and have Linden’s best interest at heart.

Meanwhile APNU Member of Parliament Jermaine Figueira said the victory was a sure one despite being disadvantaged financially compared to the PPP/C.  He accused the PPP of using tactics to ‘buy votes with the cash grant distribution, football promotion and strategic contract distribution to identified communities. These were however welcomed he said since it put food on the table of many households.

“The campaign was executed with some challenges but the campaign team managed skilfully with much help and support from a lot of ordinary Lindeners, both home and abroad who assisted  the campaign by sharing the information and messages of the campaign in their respective communities, social gatherings and on social media platforms. The collective approach of many in whatever way contributed and helped significantly to the overall success of the campaign. Our people are intelligent voters and not political gamesmanship, threats or bullying could not deter them on how to exercise their franchise,” he said.

Meanwhile Bishop Juan Edghill despite the loss said who said it is a monumental victory for the PPP for securing 2464 votes compared to the 402 votes received in 2018. Edghill said he is quite happy with the number of persons who showed up and voted for the party. This marked a more than 500 percent increase in votes.

“As much as we did not win these elections, we are quite happy with the amount of persons that showed up for us, it clearly shows, that the red wave in Linden was not a manufactured crowd, it was real people who was participating in a democratic process to bring about real change,” he told Kaieteur News.

Edghill said that the government will continue to support the municipality and since 2020, visible to the eyes, on a daily basis, were interventions from central government for Linden and we will continue to do so,” he said.

Similar sentiments were shared by leader of the list Dr. Shurland Murray who said the council should work with the government of the day to see Linden gets what it deserves and that the town gets the best service, expertise and the development it desires.

Murray also said the massive increase in votes shows ‘trouble’ for the Opposition as it was in their stronghold.

Murray said the party has not yet decided who the two representatives will be but whomever is chosen will be those who will fight for the interest and the needs of Linden and the party will focus on development, accountability and effective leadership.

“We are here not to build walls nor to raise resistance but to build bridges and that is what we are doing and as leader of the list, I will ensure we enforce that and we will continue to push to see this town become the pearl of the nation.

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• A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), constituencies, Mayor, People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Sharma Solomon

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