GECOM’s upload of SoPs to website major improvement from the 2020 elections – Commonwealth

The Commonwealth team, tasked with observing Guyana’s 2025 General and Regional Elections, has lauded the uploading of Statements of Poll (SoPs) to the Guyana Elections Commission’s (GECOM) website – which it says is an improvement from the 2020 elections lending to the accuracy and transparency of the results.
At a press conference on Wednesday morning to deliver interim findings, the Commonwealth Observer Group (COG) commended the peaceful environment before and during polling on Monday’s election day, saying that the election-related procedures were largely respected.
Chairperson of the Mission and Former Foreign Affairs Minister of Tonga, Fekitamoeloa Katoa ‘Utoikamanu, lauded the amendments to Guyana’s electoral laws that saw improvements in the counting and tabulation processes.
“We observed the counting of ballot papers. The new tabulation process for the Statements of Poll and District Tabulation Forms was followed and was well understood by party agents. The ascertainment of votes, results tabulation and verification were conducted with transparency and professionalism, and party agents were given copies of Statements of Poll.”
“The Statements of Poll were uploaded to the GECOM website by the Returning Officers, and the Group commends GECOM on these improvements from the 2020 elections, which can improve the accuracy and transparency of the results,” the Group Chair stated.
In 2020, there were blatant efforts to rig the elections in favour of the then People’s National Congress-led A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Coalition regime, which had maintained that it had the winning SoPs but never sought to produce them to support its claims.
However, the international community, including the Commonwealth, had played a crucial role in ensuring that democracy prevailed at those elections. At the time, Guyana was plunged into a political deadlock for five months as a result of blatant attempts to steal the elections by some senior electoral officials with the aim of keeping the Coalition in power.
In its report, the 2020 COG, led by the late former Prime Minister of Barbados Owen Arthur, noted that despite a smooth polling day on March 2 and tabulation process, “serious difficulties” arose during the tabulation of results for the most populous district – Region Four, which led to serious credibility concerns and ultimately, to the five-month delay to the conclusion of the electoral process.
Then Commonwealth Secretary General Baroness Patricia Scotland, QC, was very vocal during the 2020 election controversy, calling for local stakeholders to accept the results of the national recount that was conducted and confirmed that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic won the 2020 elections.

Commend GECOM
Since then, the Guyana Government has introduced a series of amendments to strengthen the integrity and transparency of the electoral process, but the 2025 COG on Wednesday said more could be done.
“While we applaud these significant improvements, we recommend the consideration of measures to further streamline the counting and tabulation process,” the Chairperson stated, adding, “We commend the work undertaken thus far. We encourage GECOM to continue to manage the tabulation and to conduct the announcement of the results with diligence and transparency.”

Recount
Up to press time on Wednesday, declarations were made by the Returning Officers (ROs) in all of the 10 electoral districts across Guyana. However, GECOM is yet to make an official declaration of the 2025 results.
Following the district declarations, the Commission said it received a request for a recount from one of the six parties that contested Monday’s general and regional elections, APNU. That request was granted, and the recount will be conducted today for the Region Four subdistrict of East Coast Demerara (ECD). Parties have until noon today to make recount requests for those district results that were declared on Wednesday.
Once the period for such requests expires and the ongoing recount process concludes, it is expected that GECOM will officially declare the results of the 2025 elections. Asked during Wednesday’s press conference about the group’s recommendations for a timelier declaration of the election results, the COG said it will pronounce on this issue in its final report.
“I know that the technical experts have worked with GECOM. They had made certain recommendations which were taken onboard and implemented, but the aspect of the speed at which the announcements were made is a delicate issue. There are various mechanisms involved in the ability to announce results in a timely fashion. We would encourage this to continue to be done diligently, and we would take this under advisement in the final report to make more specific announcements in relation to that,” another member of the COG, Darrell Bradley, stated.
Bradley, a former president of the Belize Senate and mayor of Belize City in Belize, went on to say, “Democracy is a process; it’s an ongoing journey. We’ve noted several improvements that have been made in Guyana over the various election cycles, and the Commonwealth continues to support Guyana in this journey.”
Ahead of the 2025 elections, the Commonwealth had fielded two senior electoral experts – Dr Afari-Gyan, former Chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, and Dr Nasim Zaidi, former Chief Election Commissioner of India – to support GECOM in its preparations.
The Commonwealth of Nations, generally known simply as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 54 member states, including Guyana, almost all of which are former territories of the British Empire.