Some of the smaller parties that contested the general and regional elections have expressed dissatisfaction with the tally of the votes released by the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom).
At least one also contends that the delay in the release of the results provides opportunity for tampering, while another has called for the restructuring of Gecom.
Aside from the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) and the APNU+AFC Coalition, this year’s general election was contested by The United Force (TUF), the Independent Party (IP), the National Independent Party (NIP) and the United Republican Party. The Healing the Nation Theocracy Party (HTNTP) and the Organization for the Victory of the People (OVP) only contested the regional elections in Region 4.
presidential candidate
Three of these six parties have publicly registered dissatisfaction.
TUF, in a post on its Facebook page, highlighted a discrepancy in the counting of the votes cast for the party. The post showed that as of Wednesday evening, the results announced by Gecom had the TUF’s total votes as 1,020. However, the final preliminary results announced on Thursday showed that TUF had amassed 880 votes.
While the party has accepted that the APNU+AFC coalition has won the general election, presidential candidate Marissa Nadir said she is concerned about the inconsistencies. “We have no problem with not winning, but we would like Gecom to make sure our votes are accurately accounted for in the final results,” she said.
URP presidential candidate Vishnu Bhandu told Stabroek News that the variance between his party’s tallies for the general and regional elections was simply too large. The URP, according to Gecom’s preliminary results amassed 1,174 votes in the regional election and 338 votes in the general election. As a result of this discrepancy, the URP has officially requested a recount in all 10 administrative districts. “Many people have called us to say they voted for us in the national and regional elections so we would like to be sure the count is right,” Bhandu said.
Meanwhile, Gerald Perreira of the OVP was incensed. He told Stabroek News yesterday that he has “lost all faith in the electoral process and Gecom.” He like Bhandu spoke of receiving calls from his supporters who have been asking what happened to the votes they cast for the party in the Region 4 regional election.
Perreira said his party “knew [it was] not going to win but wanted to get [its] ideas out there to let people know that there was a revolutionary option.” The way Gecom has handled the counting and verification of the results has however caused him to lose all confidence.
In a press release, the party contends that “there was absolutely no reason why a preliminary vote count could not have been issued hours after the polling stations closed on May 11th. This is what happens all over the world. It does not require advanced technology or even electronic handling of the data to issue preliminary results. It is simple arithmetic, and Gecom’s Chairman Mr Surujbally must assume that the Guyanese people are stupid if he believes that we believe that he has to wait for the hard copy of all SOPs and the ballot boxes to reach the Gecom office before a preliminary result can be tabulated and declared. In fact, it is clearly a safeguard against vote tampering and rigging to release a preliminary result as soon as possible. Four days later and still no definitive count is totally unacceptable and clearly provides an opportunity for vote tampering.”
These concerns are further compounded by the fact that “the votes for OVP appear in none of the officially released Gecom tabulations,” he said. Stabroek News’ check of its
presidential candidate
records of Gecom’s releases confirm Perreira’s claims. In the same release OVP noted that “[yesterday] the Guyanese media, including all the newspapers, reported Region 4 regional results thus far with no mention of OVP. After investigation it seems that somehow our votes were displayed as belonging to the Healing the Nation Theocracy Party. When we contacted Gecom about this, they admitted that there had been an ‘error’ regarding our votes being displayed as belonging to another party, and that it would be rectified. We are at a complete loss to know how such an ‘error’ could have been made and therefore what other ‘errors’ might have occurred.”
presidential candidate
Perreira added that Gecom invited the OVP on Thursday to be present to witness a count of the regional votes in Region 4. “Our representative was there all day and when he left Gecom after midnight, OVP had more than 300 votes and much of the region was still not counted. We were called early today [Friday] by the Returning Officer for Region 4, Ms Melanie Marshall, to tell us to send our counting agent back at 9 am as the Region 4 count was to continue this morning. When our counting agent arrived at Gecom offices he was told that there was no count today. When he reported this to us and we contacted Gecom we were told that there was a count and no one was sent away. This is untrue – our counting agent was sent away and has witnesses to the fact,” the OVP press release contends.
Meanwhile Mark Benschop, of the IP, refused to voice complaints against Gecom. He said any such action “is of no use. We as a party will be advocating for a revamping of Gecom. Gecom is confined by the law, if the law says X, Y or Z then that is what Gecom must do. We need to deal with electoral reforms not bickering, there has been enough bickering and we trust the new administration under [David] Granger will provide the electoral reforms they have promised. It is time to move forward, for too long we have been bickering, the IP doesn’t want to be bickering,” Benschop said.
