“ANYONE coming out with statements saying his party has won is playing a dangerous game, and is not to be taken seriously,” says Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Dr Steve Surujbally.Speaking at a news conference at the GECOM Command Centre on High Street, Kingston, Dr Surujbally said: “I want to remind you, as I have before, only GECOM can make that legitimate announcement relative to who has won; it seems not to be getting over to certain people; seems like they don’t read it, or they don’t understand what we have said.”

Dr Surujbally’s comments comes in the wake of A Partnership for National Unity and the Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) taking to social media to announce a win in the 2015 General and Regional Elections.
A statement made public on the party’s Facebook Page, ‘APNU Guyana’, declares: “A Partnership for National Unity and the Alliance For Change are confident that the Coalition has conducted a vertically integrated campaign, and our internal monitoring has indicated that we have won these elections, and the people of Guyana have spoken definitively for change.”
Also, at a press conference yesterday, presidential candidate, David Granger said that after counting from 2,025 statements of poll, the political opposition has won 182,176 votes, compared to 157,947 by the ruling People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC). “It is a commanding lead that we feel will be difficult to close,” he said.
APNU+AFC also called for GECOM to use its best efforts to provide a timely declaration of the results to put the nation at rest.
The GECOM Chairman made it clear that the Commission is the only authority reposed with the authority to declare the election results.
“We will not work outside the ambit of the law; and if it takes time to get the law, the nation has to have patience,” he said, adding:
“…I urge all Guyanese and stakeholders to practise patience, and to allow GECOM to now do their work to deliver the official results. It is important to remember that the only official results are those that are tabulated and issued by the designated official elections body, GECOM.” Dr Surujbally also repeated earlier appeals for patience from the Guyanese people and stakeholders in the electoral process.
“If it takes time to get the results, you must have patience; the nation must have patience,” he insisted.
SECOND APPEAL
Notable is that yesterday’s comments by Dr Surujbally marks a repeated appeal for stakeholders in the electoral process not to make declarations on final results.
GECOM, in a prior statement, said, “The duty of declaring the final official results of the 2015 General and Regional Elections rests exclusively with the Guyana Elections Commission. Any other information provided by any source(s) other than GECOM must not be considered as legitimate or valid by the citizenry.

“GECOM wishes to advise the public that only official elections results announced by GECOM are to be accepted. Any other claims to results would be spurious and unofficial. GECOM is also calling on all individuals and/or groups purporting to conduct exit polls and announcing their ‘findings’, to desist from this potentially dangerous and reckless practice, since their utterings may serve to stir unrest and create further uneasiness in an environment which is already tense.
“Moreover, extant electoral laws and guidelines mandate only GECOM as the sole legal authority to announce official election results in Guyana. In addition, it must be recognized that while there may be no specific Laws making Exit Polling an offence, there are Laws relating to the molestation of voters entering and exiting Polling Stations.”

APNU+AFC BETRAYAL
Meanwhile, former president, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo, at an early-morning press conference yesterday, charged APNU+AFC with betraying a “gentleman’s agreement” not to make declarations of a win in the absence of official word from GECOM.
He surmised that the political opposition’s declaration coincides with efforts by APNU+AFC to undermine the integrity of the electoral process.
Dr. Jagdeo acknowledged that APNU+AFC has indicated that Guyana is at an unsatisfactory stage of the electoral process. “They have called for alacrity from GECOM when they are the problem,” he declared.
The former President expressed the hope that APNU+AFC is not setting the stage for additional upsets by calling for supporters to guard votes, thereby creating a ruse to say that ballots were under threat, deal with the resultant impacts of fear and intimidation, say that results are late, declare a win and then questioning the results when they are finally declared.
Notable is that GECOM has given all assurance that all the Statements of Poll (SoPs) and ballot boxes are safely in the custody of GECOM personnel.