Jeff Bray, who is a Little Clacton Conservative councillor, was selected for the prestigious role.
But a spokesman for the Harwich Labour group said they “couldn’t possibly support him as chairman” and abstained from voting because of “history of his comments in the past”.
The reference was to posts made on his social media accounts. One of them read: “Not all muslims are terrerists [sic], but all terrerists [sic] are muslim.”
Another read: “Would Jimmy Saville’s [sic] behaviour have been acceptable if he had been muslim [sic] ??”
However, Mr Bray, 61, a former engineer and financial consultant, denied making the posts and said his accounts had been hacked.