Announcement of preliminary results postponed

Last Updated on Tuesday, 12 May 2015, 4:16 by GxMedia

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) was Monday night forced to postpone the release of preliminary results of the 2015 General and Regional Elections tonight owing to disturbances in and around the city.

Earlier tonight GECOM Commissioner, Steve Surujbally, and Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield, promised to release numbers from polling stations from several regions on the coast at 11:00pm.

At the appointed time however, Surujbally told reporters that the Guyana Police Force has been experiencing difficulties transporting statements of polls and ballot boxes from polling stations.

“There’s an environment that is not conducive to the safe movement of the ballot boxes at this point in time,” a seemingly disappointed Surujbally told a press conference a few minutes ago.

“We are ourselves engaging in maters that should ease the situation but at this point in time the ballot boxes and the statements of polls are not moving the way we thought that they would move,” he continued.

The release of preliminary results has thus been postponed until tomorrow (Tuesday) at a time yet to be determined.

When Demerara Waves passed the St. Sidwells Primary School at around 11:30 there were scores of people stationed outside of the premises. Asked what they were doing there, one woman said “we watching the polls.” She added that they did not intend to leave until the ballot boxes were removed.

A sizeable sum of persons had also congregated in the vicinity of a polling station just off the intersection of Durban and Joseph Pollydore Streets.

Following the press conference a seemingly downbeat Lowenfield noted that while GECOM wanted to keep its promise and release the preliminary results as scheduled, the situation “is beyond the control of GECOM.” He shared that there are reports of many large crowds around, and this has undoubtedly interrupted the smooth flow of the statements of polls.