…as GECOM still to count 2044 boxes
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) on Tuesday concluded its first week of the National Recount exercise currently ongoing at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC), completing an additional 48 boxes.
This brings the total number of boxes counted thus far to 295, leaving 2044 more ballot boxes to be recounted in the remaining 18 days approved by the Commission to complete the process.
It would mean the Commission—at this rate—would need another 48 days to complete the recount exercise.
Additionally, further analyses
of the figures being released continue to corroborate Opposition claims that the Region Four results that were declared by Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo was, in fact, inflated heavily in favour of the incumbent coalition.
On Monday, ballot box 4064 from the Frien
dship Nursery School was recounted and the Statement of Recount generated revealed that the coalition gained 71 votes—one more than the Statement of Poll (SoP), a copy of which was given to each party.
Contrasted against the figures declared by Mingo, however, it revealed that he had declared 99 more votes for the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC) than what was found in the box during the recount.
Notably, Mingo’s figures declared for the Opposition PPP/C were found to have been gouged by about two dozen votes in that single ballot box—a Polling Station for which only 275 persons were registered to vote.
The SoR generated on Monday found that the PPP/C gained 96 votes, three more than had been recorded in the SoP on election day. Mingo, however, declared 73 votes—23 votes less than what the recount unearthed in favour of the Opposition.
This trend continued at the Supply Primary School on the East Bank Demerara where Mingo was found to have declared in excess of 110 votes extra for the APNU/AFC.
While the SoPs and SoRs both found the exact number of ballots for the Opposition PPP/C, Mingo’s declared figures for that party revealed that he had under-declared by 10 votes.
The SoR and SoP both found that the APNU/AFC had gotten 182 votes in that ballot box while Mingo claimed that the party had gotten 292 votes.
Votes for each of the other contesting parties were confirmed in the SoRs with the numbers of votes represented for those parties in the SoPs from Elections Day.
At the Craig Nursery School, in ballot box 4074, Mingo subtracted 20 votes from the PPP/C while adding 54 votes extra for the APNU/AFC. This was revealed when contrasted against the SoP and SoR.
At that station, both the SoP and SoR confirmed 86 ballots in the box for APNU/AFC while Mingo declared 140 votes for the party.
The recount document also corroborated 84 votes for the PPP/C in the box, but according to Mingo’s declared figures, there were only 64 votes cast for the Opposition in that box—20 less than what the recount found the party had actually gotten.
At Garden of Eden in ballot box 4063, Mingo again was found to have declared 70 more votes for the APNU/AFC than what the recount unearthed in the ballot boxes. In contrast, the Opposition numbers were found to have been also gouged by Mingo, to rob the party of another 30 votes in that box alone.
