The police and crime commissioners (PCC) election results were affected by the poor turnout with almost 88% of Wiganers refrained from voting altogether. Tony Lloyd from the Labour party emerged as the clear winner with 51.23% from Thursday’s PCC elections, amidst low participation of between 10-20% recorded across the country.

While, Greater Manchester recorded 13.9% turnover, Wigan beat it with the lowest participation, which was a meagre 11.42% with 28,010 voters in total. A further breakdown of voting figures has not been provided to probably avoid further embarrassment of rumoured low voting figures.

Tony Lloyd, aged 62, resigned as Manchester Central’s MP to contest in the PCC elections, beating rivals Matt Gallagher (Lib Dem), Steven Woolfe (UKIP), Roy Warren (Independent) and former Wigan mayor Michael Winstanley (Tory), who came second with 15.6% of the vote.

The responsibilities of the new commissioners, who in large areas like Greater Manchester will earn £100,000 a year, will include controlling police budgets, setting priorities and have the power to hire and fire Chief Constables. The newly-elected commissioners will be in post until 2016.

A review board has been set up to investigate the poor turnout for the PCC elections. The review board is likely to present its findings to Parliament early in the new year. Prime Minister David Cameron denied the low number of voters meant the role lacked a popular mandate and said that the public would take more interested when PCCs begin their work.

The ECC elections were criticised by the Electoral Reform Society, which had predicted a low turnout of 18.5% across the country. The government has been slammed for refusing to provide for the cost of leafleting to give voters information about the new posts. It has been confirmed that one polling station in Newport, South Wales, had no voters pass through it.

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