LEADER of the Opposition, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Aubrey Norton, on Tuesday, following the Local Government Election, (LGE) prematurely announced a victory for his party contrary to results released by the Guyana Election Commission (GECOM).

Norton made these remarks during the opposition’s press conference yesterday at the People’s National Congress/Reform’s (PNC/R) headquarters.

During the conference, he stated that for his party, the local government elections were, “a clear case of the people rejecting the PPP.”

He said that he believes this election and the turnout of voters was a “rejection” of the governing People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), even as he unequivocally said that his party beat the PPP/C in the Local Government Elections.

“We did grassroots work, so this is a victory for grassroots work, our people worked tirelessly, we worked hard and we got the victory we deserved,” Norton said during the conference.

According to Norton, his party fought a ‘good fight’ as he stated that while a few battles might have been lost he has no doubt that they won the war.

While the opposition leader made these remarks, preliminary results from the June 12 polls indicated that the PPP/C is set to win in 66 out of 80 Local Authority Areas (LAA).

Also during a press conference on Tuesday, Vice President, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, revealed that the PPP/C had secured a majority of the votes in seven of Guyana’s ten towns. At that time, he added that out of the 80 LAAs the opposition, APNU only won 14.

Additionally, many opposition-led social media pages had predicted wins in various municipalities for the APNU but results that have been released by GECOM state otherwise.

One such premature announcement was for that of the town of Bartica where the APNU, on Monday night, announced that it had won; however, according to the official results the PPP secured five seats with over 1,740 votes while the opposition got only 1,601 votes affording them only four seats.

Meanwhile, when Norton was asked whether he was concerned about the PPP/C winning more votes in areas that have traditionally been the APNU’s ‘stronghold’ areas, he said that his party is not concerned.