A TOTAL of 46 parties, voluntary groups and individuals have been approved by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to contest the June 12 Local Government Elections (LGE).
Based on information from GECOM, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) is already poised for default wins in 12 of the 80 Local Authority Areas (LAAs) being contested.
Meanwhile, after weeks of the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) dodging questions on the magnitude of its participation in the LGE, GECOM has revealed that the party is only contesting 261 or 42.9 per cent of the 610 constituencies and 55 or 68.75 per cent of LAAs.
As required, GECOM published the approved lists of candidates in the Official Gazette on April 29.
The most popular entity on the list, the PPP/C, has been approved to contest in all 80 LAAs, which includes 70 Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) and 10 municipalities.
The PPP/C is also set for no-contest wins in a number of individual constituencies of other LAAs where other parties are only contesting the Proportional Representation (PR) component of the elections, or a limited number of the individual constituencies in the LAAs.
The LAAs where the PPP/C is the only contesting entity include Leguan, Canal Polder, and La Jalousie/Novelle Flanders in Region Three (Essequibo Island-West Demerara); Herstelling/Little Diamond in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica); Kintyre/No 37 Borlam, Ordanance/Fort Lands No 38, Kilcoy/Hampshire, Port Mourant/Johns, Bloomfield/Whim, and No 64/No 74 in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne); and the Aranaputa/Upper Burro Burro NDC and municipality of Lethem in Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo).
While APNU has managed to contest in all of the LAAs in Regions One, Two, Five, Seven, Eight and 10, the party had no submissions for Region Nine, and struggled in most of Region Three where it only managed to submit PR lists for two of the 14 LAAs, and has candidates for six of the 124 constituencies in that region.
The party also does not look good in Region Six, where it has only managed candidates for 61 of the region’s 152 constituencies, spread across 14 of the region’s 22 LAAs.
However, aside from its no show in Lethem, the party has managed to contest all of the municipalities, but came up short on constituency candidates in some of the areas, covering only four out of the seven constituencies in Rose Hall, and seven of the eight constituencies in Corriverton. In Mabaruma, the party fell one short, contesting six of the seven constituency seats.
As expected, the municipality of Georgetown had the most participation, with a total of 14 participants. Aside from the PPP/C and APNU, the Guyana National Services Party, Independent Citizens for Progress, and Movement for Unity and Democracy are contesting the PR component.
For individual constituencies, The Citizenship Initiative executive, Shazaam Ally, is running as a candidate in Constituency #One, and a candidate by the name of Malcolm De Freitas is also running in this constituency.
Yenchandra Rambarran is running in Constituency #Two under the Destiny to Oneness banner. School teacher Natasha Anthony is running under the title “People Royal Empowerment Enforced” in Constituency #10, and LGE regular, pensioner Hubert Maloney is running under the “Horizon and Star” banner in Constituency #12.
In Constituency #14, independent candidate Rawle Aaron is running under “Leadership with a Purpose,” and businesswoman Juliet Julian under “The Lamb.”
In Region Three, there are 11 voluntary groups contesting in the PR component of the elections, in various NDCs, while four persons are also contesting individual constituencies.
There are three individuals in Region Five, while in Region Six there are four individual constituency candidates and two independent groups contesting in the PR component of two separate NDCs.
In Bartica, the only LAA in Region Seven, aside from the PPP/C and the APNU, Edward Anthony is contesting in Constituency #Three of that municipality.
In Linden, aside from the PPP/C and APNU, carpenter Avis Isaacs is contesting under the title “The New Horizon Movement” in Constituency #One of that municipality.
