Incumbent David Granger claims victory, as opposition alleges fraud and foreign diplomats question poll’s credibility.
Diplomats and foreign observers have questioned preliminary results of Guyana‘s presidential election and urged incumbent David Granger not to claim victory as the opposition alleged fraud, setting up a showdown in the South American nation.
Meanwhile, Guyanese police surrounded the country’s election commission on Friday, Reuters news agency reported, adding that the commission has not yet declared a winner.
The former British colony voted on Monday to choose who will oversee an oil boom that promises to be transformative for the poor country, thanks to recent crude discoveries off its coast.
Following the preliminary results, opposition leaders denounced “thievery”, and diplomats from the United States, the European Union, Canada and the United Kingdom said results released by the election commission for one of the country’s regions were not credible.
“This is an embarrassment that this emerging oil giant has to be sitting here at this table now and speaking on the brink of a dictatorship,” said Kian Jabour of opposition party A New and United Guyana.
A disputed election could derail the country’s plans to use its newfound oil wealth to spur economic development. It would heighten long-simmering ethnic tensions between the country’s Afro-Guyanese and those of Indian descent, who have grown suspicious that the other is seeking to control oil revenue.
Region Four
Opposition leaders said the election commission altered results from an area called Region Four, the most populous electoral district, to give Granger, the sitting president, of the APNU-AFC coalition, a wide margin over Irfaan Ali of the opposition PPP party.
Former President Bharrat Jagdeo said the commission’s results for Region Four did not match the sum of votes tallied in the statements of poll – the official documents that reflect voting results at each individual polling station.
“Based on our observation of today’s [election’s commission] proceedings at their Region 4 office, and the fact that the full count was not completed, we question the credibility of the Region 4 results,” the heads of the four diplomatic missions said in a joint statement.
No winner proclaimed
The electoral commission has not yet proclaimed a winner in the race, but Granger gave celebratory statements to a rally of supporters on Thursday.
“We are here to serve you for the next five years,” he said. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart. When the sun rises … the president is sworn in again.”
The Region Four results were also questioned by the Commonwealth Observer Group, made up mostly of former British colonies, as well as the Carter Center, founded by former US President Jimmy Carter and his wife, which in 1992 helped Guyana hold a free election after decades of rigged votes.
Critics had for days complained of unnecessary delays and what they called stalling tactics, including the unexpected hospitalisation of a key election official.
Oil expected to change country
Guyana, which has a population of less than 800,000, is expected to become a major oil producer in the coming years as several companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp, tap into eight billion barrels of oil and gas off the country’s coast.
However, the country’s politics have remained largely divided along ethnic lines since Guyana’s 1966 independence from the UK.
Granger’s APNU-AFC coalition is largely made up of black Guyanese descended from African slaves while the PPP mostly represents descendants of Indian labourers who arrived in the 19th century to work on sugar plantations.
The APNU-AFC has promised to use oil wealth to finance cash transfers to citizens, in addition to investing in infrastructure and diversification of the economy.
The PPP has criticised Granger for not insisting that Exxon give a greater percentage of oil revenue to the state.
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