What is the "ptr" referencing in push function?

I am trying to do a git push of a new branch and the function for push requires refspecs and ptr. What is the "ptr" referencing? I don't see any sort of description in the documentation.

Exception ignored in: <bound method Remote.__del__ of <pygit2.remote.Remote object at 0x0000024E6DE8B5C0>>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\chfortne\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\lib\site-packages\pygit2\remote.py", line 355, in __del__
    C.git_remote_free(self._remote)
AttributeError: 'Remote' object has no attribute '_remote'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "create.py", line 99, in <module>
    repository_push(repo, short_name)
  File "create.py", line 93, in repository_push
    remote = Remote('./.git')
TypeError: __init__() missing 1 required positional argument: 'ptr'

Start with the Remote constructor and push API documentation, then compare them with the traceback locations in remote.py line 355 and create.py lines 93-99. Clarify what the ptr parameter represents, how it relates to Remote construction, and document the expected usage so the reported TypeError is understandable.