Outgoing president Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday expressed pleasure over the smooth progress of voting moments after casting his final ballot as head of state at the Christ Church Secondary polling station, Georgetown.
According to GINA release, Jagdeo said that based on reports he had received polling had been going quite well across the country; “so I’m extremely pleased. There have been some minor hiccups, in a few places, but these have been resolved easily.”
With regard to concerns by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) that the Guy-ana Elections Commission (Gecom) has not
issued polling and counting agents with Certificates of Employ-ment, Jagdeo said that was a Gecom decision, according to GINA.
The certificate serves as a prerequisite that would allow those stakeholders to vote at the polling stations to which they have been deployed, and according to GINA, Jagdeo said the decision would similarly affect all the parties. He however, added that since the numbers of persons being disenfranchised would only be about a few hundred, then the Gecom decision should not have any influence one way or another on the elections results.
He told GINA that it had been a peaceful and competitive campaign and he looked forward to a peaceful ending so that the country can get back to work.
He said the evident cohesiveness among the diverse Guyanese population is unprecedented and he remained confident that there is an outlook for a future where the past is erased. “The past that haunts us, where all of our people regardless of race or religion can live together, work together, build this country together and achieve together and I think we are on the way to that,” Jagdeo was quoted as saying.
Jagdeo served as junior finance minister before 1999 and was appointed to president by former first lady and first female president Janet Jagan, who resigned from the presidency for health reasons.
