Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Justice (rt’d) Claudette Singh has officially instructed the Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield to prepare his elections report to the Commission by 13:00h Thursday.
In the letter, seen by the News Room, and which was confirmed by the Public Relations Officer Yolanda Ward, the Chairman was clear that Lowenfield has to submit his report using the results of the national recount which shows the Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) winning the elections by 15,416 votes.
“Pursuant to Article 177 (2) (b) of the Constitution and Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act Chapter 1:03, you are hereby requested to prepare and submit your report by 13:00hrs on 18th June, 2020 using the results of the recount for consideration by the Commission,” Justice Singh wrote.
Irfaan Ali is expected to be declared the ninth President of Guyana.
The Constitution at Article 177 dictates that “if more votes are cast in favour of the list in which a person is designated as Presidential candidate that in favour of any other list, that Presidential Candidate shall be ‘deemed’ to be elected President and shall be so declared by the Chairman of the Elections Commission acting only in accordance with the advice of the Chief Elections Officer…”
Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act deals with the allocation of Parliamentary seats to the political parties.
According to the totals of the recount, using the system of the largest remainder, the PPP will have 33 seats, APNU+AFC has 31 seats and three parties which combined their lists – ANUG, LJP and TNM – secured one seat.
Election of the 65 Parliamentarians are drawn from two lists – the National Top-Up List and the 10 Geographic Constituency lists.
A total of 40 Parliamentary seats can be drawn from the National Top Up list.
How are these seats allocated? After the elections are over, the total number of valid votes cast are divided into 40 and parties are allocated seats according to who has the greatest number of votes.
A total of 25 Parliamentary seats can be drawn from the Geographic Constituency lists.
How are these seats allocated? After the elections are over, the total number of valid votes cast in EACH REGION is divided by the number of seats designated for each region. For example, seven seats are assigned to District Four and so the total number of votes for this district will have to be divided by seven to determine the quota for one seat.
For election to the country’s ten Regional Democratic Councils (RDCs), most RDCs are made up of 35 seats.
So to determine the number of seats for each party, the total valid votes cast in EACH REGION are divided into 35 and seats are allocated according to which party has the greatest number of votes.
