In their final report on the March 2nd polls, the European Union Election Observer Mission (EU EOM) has said that the integrity of the entire electoral process was “seriously compromised” by vote count in Region Four and has cited the senior Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) officials for acting in violation of the law.

“However, the integrity of the entire electoral process was seriously compromised by the non-transparent and non-credible tabulation of results in the largest and decisive Region 4 by senior Guyana Elections Commission officials, acting in blatant violation of the law and High Court orders issued in this regard.”

These results gave APNU+AFC and PPP/C 136,057 and 77,231 votes, respectively, for the general elections in Region 4, which would be enough for the ruling coalition to overcome the opposition’s advantage in the other regions and take the lead nationally.

Key shortcomings include unregulated registration and operations of political parties, mostly unregulated campaign finance, lack of provisions prohibiting misuse of state resources, full discretion of parties to select their parliamentarians after the elections, no guarantee for women’s representation in parliament and lack of transparency in the publication of the • The list of electors was generally inclusive, despite fervent controversies over its preparation and accuracy.

In a largely unregulated environment, GECOM invited all parties to sign a code of conduct three days before election day, too late to have a real impact on the • The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) observed the misuse of state re-sources by the ruling coalition.