FOLLOWING the declaration of the results for Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) and five other contesting parties will be calling for a recount of the ballots in this region.

Returning Officer (RO) of Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), Clairmont Mingo had declared results for this region on Thursday. And, according to those results, the incumbent A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Chance (APNU+AF C) coalition received 136,458 votes and the PPP/C received 77,329 votes. The PPP/C along with A New and United Guyana (ANUG), The New Movement (TNM), Change Guyana (CG), Liberty and Justice Party (LJP) and the United Republican Party (URP), will call for a recount of the ballots for the entire region.

This was according to Presidential Candidate of the PPP/C, Irfaan Ali during a joint-press briefing among the parties, on Thursday evening. Ali argued that the Statements of Poll (SOPs) gathered by the PPP/C and other parties show that the PPP/C won over 80,000 votes while the APNU+AFC got around 114,000 in Region Four. This he said was not reflected because the verification process for the SOPs was not completed and the results were instead arbitrarily declared by Mingo.

The presidential candidate said there were a lot of “questionable activities,” during the prior days after the elections on Monday, which led up to the declaration of those results. Ali said many local and international stakeholders have since objected to those declarations, and the PPP/C along with its “allies” has called for the GECOM to return to the legal process of having the results for Region Four verified, inputted and then announced.

Chairman of ANUG, Timothy Jonas also called for GECOM to follow “due process,” and said that his party called for a full recount of the results. “But if we can’t get Mingo we can’t pursue the process provided by law…it is no doubt that the system ran smoothly for the counting of votes for nine regions…GECOM has hijacked the system and undermined the process, and there is no harm greater than electoral fraud,” said Jonas.

In this regard, he said a government, which is sworn in based on these results, should not be recognised by the international community and there should be economic sanctions imposed on individuals of the government. These sentiments were echoed by the other political leaders, who said the current action is dangerous and threatened to mobilise supporters, businesses and other stakeholders to ensure that the elections go according to the law.