PRESIDENT Dr. Irfaan Ali has branded the opposition’s call for fresh elections as “utter nonsense,” describing it as playing “games” with the nation’s stability and development.

The President’s comments came today outside of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) while engaging with the media.
Dr. Ali was responding to the actions taken by the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), which, in a letter to the chair of GECOM Claudette Singh, demanded a forensic audit of the electoral data or fresh elections.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” President Ali said.

He also highlighted that after the opposition parties lost the election and subsequently demanded a recount, which did not change the outcome.

The tactics, which have been labelled as an attempt to “delay the inevitable”, show the Guyanese people who is for them and who is not, the President stated.

President Ali said: “The life of this country is important, and if people continue to see who plays with the life of this country, who plays with the life of the citizens, who don’t care about the citizens and the development of this country. We have to keep this country intact and safe. We have to ensure that our international investors are ready to invest, and that we demonstrate to the world that we are a democracy that is credible, which is demonstrated in these elections, but more importantly, that investors’ confidence is always high, and this is just playing games with the country’s life.”

The President further noted that all observer missions, both international and local, have stated that the elections were free and fair.
With just over 100 ballot boxes already recounted in Sub-District Four (East Coast Demerara), there has been no significant change in the numbers previously declared by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).

This was revealed by GECOM Commissioner Sase Gunraj, who on Thursday evening, told reporters that the electoral body has set up 25 workstations, with just about 75 staff working around the clock.

“There is no significant change in the numbers that are already contained in statements of poll that, of course, have led to declarations,” Gunraj told reporters.

The process is expected to continue throughout the night, with a total of 391 boxes having to be recounted for the subdistrict.

“I want to start by saying from the outset that GECOM has done extremely well to provide three staff at every table. That means 75 staff members of GECOM alone are working at any given time,” he said.

The commissioner further noted that, although agents for each party are present at the location, there appears to be a marked lack of interest from the leadership, particularly from the leadership of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), which requested the recount.

“You are seeing no real interest from their leaders. You are seeing no real interest from senior members of their party, senior candidates, nothing like that. And it therefore begs the question whether this is indeed a delaying tactic to frustrate the electorate and to frustrate this nation as a whole,” Gunraj told reporters.

He disclosed that GECOM has granted another request from the APNU for a recount of 77 ballot boxes from Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice), with the party satisfying all the criteria necessary for a recount.

The We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party’s requests for recounts in both District Four and District Eight were denied by GECOM.
According to the commission, the applications were submitted to the Returning Officer by an individual who was not authorised to make such requests.

The PPP/C has won Region Four, capturing 87,536 votes, according to official results declared by the region’s Returning Officer.
The victory marks a historic first, as the region has been a reliable stronghold for the People’s National Congress/Reform (PNC/R) and its successor coalition, APNU.

The APNU, which once dominated the region, saw a dramatic decline in support, securing only 46,956 votes.
The APNU from 2011 to 2020 had always captured more than 50 per cent of the votes cast for Electoral District Four/Region Four.

The percentage of votes captured for that region peaked in 2015, when the party joined forces at the polls with the Alliance For Change (AFC) as a coalition.

Analysts say it is clear that most of the APNU votes went to WIN, which secured 41,607 votes.
General and Regional Elections were held on Monday and after polls closed, GECOM publicly uploaded the Statements of Polls (SOPs) for the general public to see, a stark difference in what happened in 2020.