Bomb Threat, Lack of Election Results Raise Tension in Guyana

Three days after the presidential election, Guyana's Election Commission (Gecom) has not yet offered the results of an electoral process in which the ruling Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change (ANPU-AFC) and the opposition People's Progressive Party Civic (PPP-C) are the main political forces in dispute.

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Guyana Continues to Wait for Election Results

The situation became more complicated on the midnight of Wednesday when the vote count stopped because an official said he was tired and was retiring to his house to rest.​​​​​​​

Shortly thereafter, however, he and four other people were caught in an internal office filling out data on excel sheets. Subsequently, it was known that those excel sheets had irregularities because the election results had been altered in 17 out of 23 polling stations, ​​​​​as teleSUR correspondent Alejandro Kirk reported.​​​​​​​

The new data favored the UNPA-AFC party by giving it up to 100 votes at each polling station. As a result, the authorities decided to retell all the votes from the beginning. ​​​​​​​

On Thursday morning, Guyana's Foreign Affairs Minister Karen Cummings met with international observers and diplomats, among whom were the ambassadors of Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. 

She warned them that the observers' credentials might be withdrawn because the Guyanese government was unhappy with the statements they had made.

At the same time, the police announced that there was a bomb threat in the building where the votes are expected to be counted. Despite this risk, diplomats said they were going to stay on-site to protect the electoral records.

Until Wednesday afternoon, the opposition PPP party was leading the count with "more than six thousand votes in its favor," Prensa Latina reported and added that ​​​​​​​President David Granger asked the Guyanese for patience.