PNC election results delay: Alexander blames holiday, availability of attendants to count 1300 ballots

…“Ballot tampering or incompetence?” – Jagdeo

Some five days after the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) Delegates Congress ended, the results of the election of the party’s 15-member Central Executive Committee (CEC) have been delayed.
The PNC’s 22nd Biennial Delegates Congress was held last weekend at the party’s Congress Place headquarters in Sophia, Greater Georgetown, from Friday, June 28 to Sunday, June 30. The elections for key leadership positions within the party were held on Sunday and in a subsequent statement, the PNC said the counting of votes for the election of the 15-member CEC will continue on Monday.
However, up to Wednesday, it was reported that the votes for the new PNC CEC were still being counted.

In a statement on Thursday, the independent Returning Officer (RO) for the elections, Vincent Alexander, explained that the count for the CEC members required the examination of approximately 1300 ballots with each bearing 59 candidates.
He added that each ballot has to be checked to determine which 15 of the 59 candidates obtained the highest number of votes. Alexander pointed out other factors that have contributed to the delays in the count.
“The duration of this exercise while being quite time-consuming has also been influenced by the Caricom Day holiday [on Monday] and the availability of the unaffiliated ballot attendants, only in the evenings,” he stated.
Nevertheless, Alexander assured that the count would be completed on Thursday, July 4, and announced sometime today.

He further argued, however, that the “public anxiety” over the delays of the CEC results has overshadowed the fact that the results for the executive officers, namely the leader, chairperson, vice-chairpersons, and treasurer were promptly released on the said evening of the day of the elections.
Moreover, he outlined that the PNCR 2024 Internal Elections Procedures and Instructions provided for the announcement of results “not later than 24hrs after the count”.
According to Alexander, “VA & Associates is proud to have been chosen to conduct the PNCR internal elections for the second consecutive occasion, and even more proud of its transparent and open conduct of the elections, in a country where elections are associated with notoriety.”
The delay of the results from the internal elections of the PNC, which is the largest party in the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) parliamentary Opposition, comes on the heels of the March 2, 2020 elections and the infamous events that followed.
Blatant attempts by the then PNC-led APNU/AFC regime to steal those elections saw Guyana being plunged into a five-month political and electoral deadlock.
After eventually losing those elections, the APNU and AFC separated to do independent political work, but have remained the joint parliamentary Opposition in the National Assembly.
However, with the 2025 elections approaching, the two parties are contemplating whether to return to the polls independently or as a coalition.
But even as the Opposition parties are preparing for next year’s polls, they are being criticised over the lack of credibility in their own internal party elections.

In addition to the delay in the count, there had also been serious concerns with the transparency of the PNC elections which had led to two senior party members – Roysdale Forde, SC, and Amanza Walton-Desir – dropping out of the leadership race just 24 hours prior thus allowing Aubrey Norton to be re-elected as leader. Moreover, the party’s General Secretary, Dawn Hastings-Williams, also resigned days leading up to the Congress, citing concerns about financial accountability among other reasons.
This is not the first time the issue of electoral irregularities has risen at the PNC Congress. Similar allegations had also surfaced within the PNC when former leader David Granger was elected.
Meanwhile, People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday cast doubts on the election results of the PNCR, given the prolonged delay.
“It shows incompetence or either tampering of the ballots,” Jagdeo told reporters during a press conference.
On this note, Jagdeo compared the PNC’s inability to produce these results even after four days to his party’s ability to provide election results within a day after the PPP/Civic congress. He noted that the PNCR had approximately 1000 votes to select 60 candidates while the PPP/C had 2459 votes to determine 93 candidates at its congress held earlier this year.
“It’s either you’re doing something illegal or you’re unbelievably incompetent.”
He also spoke of the Opposition party’s Congress which was shrouded in claims of corruption from its own members. He added that while new leaders of that party will be tasked with proving that the party has changed, the internal elections again showed that this was not true.
“You have this opportunity to say now that we’re going to change…But if your competitors are saying you rigged your own internal elections, how will people trust that you will stick to the democratic norm?” he questioned.