Guyana leaders accept full recount of presidential election

AP | The government and opposition have agreed to a complete recount of votes in a presidential election marred by complaints of possible fraud in Guyana, a relatively poor nation heading into a new era of oil wealth.

A team from the 15-nation Caribbean Community (CARICOM) arrived in the South American nation early Sunday to supervise the recount for the March 2 general election.

The country’s electoral commission ruled late Friday that incumbent President David Granger had won a second 5-year term. But warnings that the vote might not be seen as valid led Granger a day later to accept a CARICOM call for a full recount.

CARICOM last week sent a team of 5 prime ministers to try to resolve the impasse. “The president and the opposition have both committed to abide by the results of a fair and transparent recount of each and every ballot,” said Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, the current CARICOM leader who headed the delegation.

Guyana faces the prospect that oil revenues in the next decade could make it one of the wealthiest in the hemisphere.

The country recently sold its first million barrels to markets in Asia and southern U.S. states. It will get 4 more shipments this year worth about US$300 million as part of production-sharing arrangements with a consortium led by ExxonMobil, along with Hess Oil of the US and Nexen of China.

Granger, a 74-year-old retired army general, leads a multiparty coalition supported mainly by descendants of Africans brought to Guyana as slaves.

The opposition People’s Progressive Party, which led the nation for 23 years until 2015, is supported mostly by Guyanese of East Indian descent brought to Guyana as indentured servants.