WITH 11 days left for Local Government Elections, the campaign spirit is high in the town of Linden as the two political parties and two independent groups strive through various campaigning techniques to win the votes of the electorate. Apart from the independent group, Linden 2025, led by mayoral candidate Samuel Wright, all the others contesting have stepped up their campaigning, cognizant of the limited time remaining. Linden 2025 had its launching last Saturday and commenced campaigning this week.
The APNU-AFC coalition group has taken the opportunity to yellow and green Linden with party flags flying high along most of the town’s main roadways. This is in addition to banners with the faces of the candidates being erected at several popular junctions both in Wismar and Mackenzie. Party leader Sandra Adams told the Guyana Chronicle that the campaigning was “going excellent” and there have been no hiccups thus far. She said that all of the candidates were integrally involved in house to house visits, public meetings and other active engagements with the residents.
Some residents expressed the view that the party might be getting funding from the central level for such an aggressive campaign but Adams refuted this claim, maintaining that the campaign was being funded at the local level. She said that all of the candidates contesting for all eight constituencies were very confident of being elected to council.

DIFFERENT APPROACH
Leader of the PPP group Orin Wilson said that his party’s campaigning was not as aggressive as the others since he did not believe that at the local government level, traditional campaigning techniques should be used since it was not about the party but about the candidate. Taking a different approach, Wilson said that his party had embarked on several community programmes and outreaches so that the residents of the various constituencies would get to know their party representatives on a one-on-one level. These include organizing community games such as cricket and football and engaging the residents through house-to-house visits. These, he said, were not methods requiring much funding, so not one flier had been printed to showcase the party. When commenting on the confidence level, Wilson said that the best candidate would win but he was positive that the electorate would vote for the candidate and not the party.

TEAM AMBASSADORS
Team Ambassadors for Progress has created a strong presence in the communities, especially among young people as most of the candidates are relatively young. Mayoral candidate Norris King told this publication that his group’s campaigning was going well despite a bit of intimidation among business people who seemed willing to donate funds. Despite the financial challenges Team Ambassadors for Progress has managed to erect a few banners and posted several fliers in public places. In addition to this, the independent group has created a strong presence on social media as a means of capturing the target audience of young people.
King said that his optimism had grown stronger as the electorate was aware of the lies being told that a group could not have a mayoral designate. “We know they are fearful and so our spirits are high because they know that the public will not vote for their candidate and the people will not be fooled again.”
The Linden municipality is manned by an Interim Management Committee since 2003 under the chairmanship of Orin Gordon.