The Guyana Elections Commission met late this afternoon and made a decision to verify the statements of poll from Region 4 for entry into its tabulation system.

A spreadsheet system was being used previously but that process was stopped as some differences in numbers popped up.

Party agents along with candidates and observers met with GECOM officials and that led to the decision by GECOM to use just the statements of poll.

Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield said that with the Returning Officer not in place due to him falling ill, the verification process was restarted this afternoon around 2 o’clock and it was during that verification that some issues were discovered.

“We would have completed the first eight statements and there were some errors contained in six of those statements. The representatives of the parties, as well as the observers, spoke to me to stop the process…and I advised my staff along with the agents and the observers that I would engage the Commission and that was done”, Lowenfield said.

He said the decision was made that they would go through the verification process statement by statement and that means “you take out your statement and I take out my statement and we look at the numbers on the statements and if there continue to be errors then there is a procedure prescribed for us to do that”.

PPP General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo said he is satisfied with the decision coming out of the Commission and he believes citizens need to be patient with the Commission. Jagdeo said he remains confident with the statements that his party has seen and tabulated.

Members of the Diplomatic community also spoke to the media and said that now that the process is moving forward, GECOM should be allowed to do its work and citizens should be patient. 

The results for Regions 4 and 7 are the only outstanding results to come from Returning Officers.  The Returning officers for the various regions have been declaring their results and those results show the PPP in the lead by more than 50,000 votes.

Those results are without the results from regions 4 and 7.  Region 4 is the largest region with the most voters. 

The Guyana Elections has indicated that its staff will work throughout the night to tabulate the information from all the statements of poll.  

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