Georgetown, Guyana – September 4, 2025 – The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has granted yet another request from A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), this time for a recount of 77 ballot boxes in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice). The announcement was made late Thursday by government-nominated Commissioner Sase Gunraj, who confirmed that APNU’s application “satisfied all the criteria necessary for a recount.”
The decision comes even as APNU’s much larger recount request for Sub-District Four of Region Four continues at GECOM headquarters. That exercise covers 391 ballot boxes, but by 6:00 p.m. Thursday only 101 had been completed. With tensions already running high over spoiled ballot disputes in the Region Four recount, the Region Five process will only begin once the East Coast boxes are fully counted. Gunraj said the recounts will continue “uninterrupted” until all ballots are reviewed.
Outside GECOM’s compound, supporters of both government and opposition parties lingered in anxious groups, debating whether the recounts would change anything at all. For some, Region Five’s approval was seen as a small victory for APNU in their battle to challenge the preliminary results. For others, it felt like yet another delay in a process they believed was already settled.
Not everyone got what they wanted. The We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party had requested recounts for both Region Four and Region Eight, but both applications were thrown out. GECOM ruled that the requests were invalid because they were submitted by individuals not legally authorized to make them. Under the law, recount applications must be filed by the official election agent of the party, and the deadline is noon on the day after a district’s results are declared.
With Region Four’s recount already marked by shouting matches over ballots party agents insisted were spoiled, the Region Five review promises to add another layer of scrutiny, and another layer of tension, to an electoral process that has left Guyana’s political climate charged and uncertain.
