BREAKING: Irfaan Ali declared next President of Guyana

Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission, retired Justice Claudette Singh has declared Mohamed Irfaan Ali of the People’s Progressive Party Civic as the next President of Guyana.

The declaration was made just after 2:30 on Sunday afternoon after Justice Singh received the final elections report from the Chief Election Officer, Keith Lowenfield.

That final report was based on the numbers from the recount and will result in the PPP going back into government with 33 seats while the APNU+AFC will walk away with 31 seats and the Joinder parties (ANUG, JFAP, TNM) will slide into Parliament with 1 seat.

In his final report, the Chief Election Officer restated his position that he does not believe that with the number of anomalies discovered during the recount, the final declaration truly reflects the will of the people.

In his report to the GECOM Chair, Lowenfield stated that the recount revealed “that the numerical count of the ballots cast for each list of candidates does not reflect the true will of the electors. The evidence provided with respect to voter impersonation has been verified by the relevant authorities by way of immigration records and deceased reports”.

His report using the tabulations from the recount shows that the PPP got 233, 336 votes, the APNU+AFC got 217, 920 votes and the joinder parties 5,214 votes.

Already, the three APNU+AFC nominated members of the Guyana Elections Commission have distanced themselves from the declaration.

In a statement that came moments before the final declaration document was released, Commissioners Vincent Alexander, Charles Corbin and Desmond Trotman said “We feel that every vote should be counted and no invalid vote should be allowed to impact the results. Any other approach will lead to another political saga in our country’s short but turbulent political history. We are therefore distancing ourselves from any Declaration other than a non-declaration and fresh elections.”

The declaration by the GECOM Chairperson has now paved the way for the former Housing Minister under the last PPP Civic Government to be sworn in as the new President of Guyana.