Still No Official Results in Guyana, One Month After General Election

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – There are still no election results in Guyana. For some four weeks, courts and the country’s Supreme Electoral Commission (GECOM) have been considering whether and to what extent the results will be recounted

Earlier this week, the Guyana Court of Appeals ruled that the GECOM was competent to recount the results. This was initially intended to be broadcast live on television, but was subsequently reversed.

In addition, election observers from the Commonwealth, the Organization of American States (OAS), the European Union, the Carter Centre and the CARICOM (Caribbean Community) are scheduled to return to supervise the recount procedure.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday that he was still relying on a “fair and transparent count”.

Some ten days following the March 2nd elections, the country’s Supreme Court Justice, Roxane George, ruled that the head of Guyana’s largest constituency, the so-called Region Four, had violated electoral laws by publishing unverified results.

On March 16th, a nationwide recount was started after the former president, David Granger, several opposition leaders and the CARICOM reached an agreement.

However, this was then blocked by the filing of a preliminary injunction by a candidate of the former government alliance. This agreement stipulated that the CARICOM was to supervise the recount.

Last weekend, it was said that any order issued by the GECOM to the administration would need to include a clear instruction as to whether a recount of all the votes cast would be carried out or whether further details would be investigated, such as the election turnout.

Despite the obvious chaos in the counting procedure and an almost unprecedentedly long period without official election results, there is little international interest in the election results and the reasons for the delays. The Organization of American States (OAS), for instance, is clearly reluctant to take action.

An interesting factor could be that Guyana will be producing large volumes of oil and gas in the near future.

In late January, the US company Exxon Mobil raised its production projection for the South American country from six to eight billion barrels following the discovery of another oil field off the coast of Guyana.

The Urgewald NGO even expects future production to reach 13.6 billion barrels of oil and 32 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Information about the reserves and the granting of production licenses in the Esequibo region to Exxon Mobil have led to increased tensions between Guyana and Venezuela.

Guyana manages the territory claimed by Venezuela under a 1966 agreement.

Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. It is the only English-speaking country in South America, and is culturally considered part of the Anglophone-Caribbean sphere.

In addition, it is one of the founding member countries of the Caribbean Community organization (CARICOM). Guyana is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north, Brazil to the south and southwest, Venezuela to the west, and Suriname to the east. With an area of 215,000 square kilometres (83,000 sq mi), Guyana is the third-smallest sovereign state on mainland South America, after Uruguay and Suriname.