It is now Day 8 into the national recount of votes cast in the March 2, polls; and counting continues. The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has so far counted a total of 311 of the 2,339 ballot boxes.
Yesterday (Tuesday), 48 boxes were completed; 12 for Region One, 9 for Region Two, 12 for Region Three and 15 for Region Five.
As it relates to the tabulation of the Statements of Recount (SOR’s), 288 were completed for the General Elections and 285 for the Regional.
There is a proposed 25-day time-frame to complete the recount process. However, due to the current pace of the exercise, it is highly unlikely that GECOM would be able to meet this timeline.
GECOM’s Public Relations Officer (PRO), Yolanda Ward explained that while the exercise is continuing, the commission is in the process of working out the logistics to have more workstations erected.
GECOM is expected to meet today to make definitive decisions regarding speeding up the process and to possibly review of the 25-day timeline.
The Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) has said that the National Recount is, daily, exposing Region Four’s Returning Officer’s (RO) declarations as fraudulent.
The Region Four RO, Clairmont Mingo, is being accused of declaring results for the region that are now being proven as inflated in favour of the incumbent A Partnership For National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC).
According to PPP, over the past week, there have been several instances where the figures that were released by Mingo did not match the actual numbers of the official SOPs and the Statements of Recount (SORs).
Some of the figures have been inflated by 100 in some instances in favour of the APNU/AFC and in some cases, the numbers for the PPP/C have been reduced, PPP said.
