A total of 80 polling stations located at strategic army, police, fire and prison services locations will be opened from 6 am to 6 pm to today to facilitate early voting by some 7,918 members of the disciplined services for this year’s Local Government Elections.
Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Public Relations Officer Yolanda Ward yesterday said all systems were in place at the polling stations for today’s elections.
The members of the disciplined services are required by law to vote ahead of the fixed date for the countrywide polls as they are required to work or to be on stand-by to maintain law and order and to deal with emergencies on elections day. The elections for the general populace will be held on Monday, November 12th.
At a press conference on Monday, Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield said that ballots for the Guyana Police Force, Guyana Defence Force, Guyana Prison Service and Guyana Fire Service were extracted by GECOM officials and taken to the locations where the ranks are stationed and where they will vote. He assured that the ballots were “tightly secured” by the police.
When Stabroek News visited some of the locations of the polling stations between 4.30 pm and 5.30 pm yesterday, only one of out of several locations where polling stations were to be readied, was actually ready for polling. This was at Camp Ayanganna. The police at Brickdam reported that the polling stations were being set up, however, the same could not be said for some other locations where polling stations were still to be set up. It was expected that they would have been set up overnight in time for opening of polls at 6 am today.
The elections are being observed by missions from the Private Sector Commission, the Public Service Union, the Canadian High Commission and the United States Embassy.
