After being told by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) on Monday evening that all the Returning Officers (ROs) would have made their declarations of results from their respective regions by midday on Tuesday, Guyanese were left in suspense – a situation which the Private Sector Commission (PSC) was concerned about.
PSC Chairman, Captain Gerry Gouveia at Tuesday’s press conference along with Media Consultant Kit Nascimento; AmCham Guyana President Zulfikar Ally and PSC Governance and Security Committee Chairman, Retired Major General Norman McLean
At a press conference at 17:00h on Tuesday, Chairman of the PSC, Captain Gerry Gouveia, pointed out that they were expecting results to start trickling in from the 10 Regions/Districts since Monday evening after the closing of polls.
He referenced laws, which authorise the ROs to make declarations soon after tabulations in their regions, but up to that time, this was not done.
“We are extremely concerned that this process is delayed and we don’t have an acceptable reason at this time why that is happening. So, it’s an extreme concern to the Private Sector that this tabulation process seemed not to have ended at this time…,” Gouveia stated.
The PSC Chairman further noted that after receiving reports that the ROs were in receipt of the final results, he enquired from Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield about whether there were any restrictions on the regional officers to make public declarations – an act which would be against the law.
However, the PSC Chair said he did not ask the CEO what the reason behind the delays in the declarations was. According to Gouveia, he was more interested in whether restrictions were on the ROs since this had been a bug-bearer in past electoral processes.
“Whilst the law was exactly the same, in the past, the returning officers were prevented from making the public pronouncements because GECOM head office prevented them until they have some kind of correlation between what was happening at the GECOM head office and the Returning Officers… [Lowenfield] had assured us as observers that tabulation would happen by the law… that’s why we are baffled that we’re at the same place we were four or five elections ago,” he contended.
Nevertheless, Chairman of the Commission’s Governance and Security Committee, retired Major General Norman McLean, contended that the longer it takes to declare the results of Monday’s General and Regional Elections, the more likely there will be “problems”.
In fact, many businesses in Georgetown had closed their stores early as tension continues to mount among Guyanese over the uncertainty of the impending elections results.
The PSC Chairman told reporters that the Commission has deliberately stayed away from conducting its own tabulations of the results for this reason. It pointed to an attempt by GECOM around midday on Tuesday to update the country with preliminary figures of a mere 132 polling stations that were processed from a total of 2339.
This, Gouveia posited, was a dangerous thing to do. However, at about 19:30h ROs finally started declaring the regional results.
On this note, the PSC Chair called on political parties not to engage in premature pronouncement of victory and to leave that to be officially declared by GECOM.
“So we, basically, are asking all political parties to exercise restraint, we’re asking citizens to exercise patience and give GECOM the opportunity to complete the work that they’ve embarked on,” Gouveia stressed.
The PSC was one of the local election observers.
