GECOM to discuss Chief Elections Officer report before declaring winner

Georgetown: Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield report submitted to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) will be discussed Monday ahead of the anticipated final declaration, on June 16, of the March 2 elections.

The meeting commenced at GECOM’s High Street, Kingston Headquarters.

According to the amended Recount Order, “The Commission shall, after deliberating on the report…, determine whether it should request the Chief Elections Officer to use the data complied… as the basis for the submission of a report under section 96 of the Representation of the People Act, Cap 1:03, provided that the Commission shall, no later than three (3) days after receiving the report, make the declaration of the results of the final credible count of the elections held on the 2nd day of March 2020.”

Lowenfield submitted his report on the recently-concluded national recount of the votes cast at the March polls to the GECOM Chair, Retired Justice Claudette Singh on Saturday. The report has since been shared with the six Commissioners at GECOM.

In the report, the CEO confirmed that the Opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) secured a majority of the votes cast at the March 2020 General and Regional Elections.

He presented figures to show PPP/C in a landslide victory in the General Elections with 15,416 more votes than its main political rival, the incumbent A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition.

The PPP/C garnered a total of 233,336 votes while the APNU/AFC secured 217,920 votes.

For the new parties, the numbers are as follows: A New and United Guyana (ANUG) – 2313; Change Guyana (CG) – 1953; Liberty and Justice Party (LJP) – 2657; People’s Republic Party (PRP) – 889; The Citizen’s Initiative (TCI) – 680; The New Movement (TNM) – 244; and the United Republican Party (URP) – 360.